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FBI offering $100,000 reward for information on Most Wanted Cyber Criminals | https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/fbi-offering-100000-reward-for.html | The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has added five new hackers to its Cyber most wanted list and is seeking information from the public regarding their whereabouts.
The men are wanted in connection with hacking and fraud crimes both within the US as well as internationally. Rewards ranging from up to $50,000 to $100,000 are being offered for information that leads to their arrest.
Two of them are Pakistani, Farnhan Arshad and Noor Aziz Uddin, who caused the damage of over $50 million after hacking business telephone systems between 2008 and 2012. Arshad and Uddin are part of an international criminal ring that the FBI believes extends into Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Spain, Singapore, Italy, Malaysia, and other locations.
Syrian national Andrey Nabilevich Taame, wanted for his alleged role in Operation Ghost Click, a malware scheme that compromised more than four million computers in more than 100 countries between 2007 and October 2011; there were at least 500,000 victims in the United States alone.
Alexsey Belan, a Russian national, is wanted for alleged hacking of three US-based companies between 2012 and 2013.
Carlos Perez-Melara is wanted for his alleged involvement in manufacturing software that was used to intercept the private communications of hundreds of victims around September 2003. As part of the scheme, Perez-Melara ran a website offering customers a way to "catch a cheating lover" by sending "spyware" disguised as an electronic greeting card.
The rewards are being offered for each of the five fugitives, all of whom are believed to be living outside the U.S.
"The expansion of the Cyber's Most Wanted list is a reflection of the FBI's increased efforts in this area," FBI officials said in a statement.
| Malware |
Critical infrastructure managing software vulnerable to Unauthorized access | https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/critical-infrastructure-managing.html | Reid Wightman from security firm ioActive reported that there is an undocumented backdoor available in CoDeSys software that actually used to manage equipment in power plants, military environments, and nautical ships.
The bug allow malicious hackers to access sensitive systems without authorization, Ars said. The CoDeSys tool will grant a command shell to anyone who knows the proper command syntax and inner workings, leaving systems that are connected to the public Internet open to malicious tampering and There is absolutely no authentication needed to perform this privileged command, Reid mention.
This software has been used in industrial control systems sold by 261 different manufacturers. 3S-Smart Software Solutions designs CoDeSys and recently issued an advisory that recommends users set a password, but he is able to develop two exploit shells , one is codesys-shell.py (to get the CoDeSys command shell without authentication) and other , codesys-transfer.py (read or write files to the PLC without authentication) which works fine without authentication.
This is another big security vulnerabilities that threaten power plants and other critical infrastructure both in the United States and elsewhere in the world. Wightman said a simple search using the Shodan, showed 117 devices directly connected to the Internet.
Wightman said that additional vulnerability details about issue and exploit code that automates the hack can be added to Metasploit framework.
| Vulnerability |
3 Zero-Day Exploits Hit SonicWall Enterprise Email Security Appliances | https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/3-zero-day-exploits-hit-sonicwall.html | SonicWall has addressed three critical security vulnerabilities in its hosted and on-premises email security (ES) product that are being actively exploited in the wild.
Tracked as CVE-2021-20021 and CVE-2021-20022, the flaws were discovered and reported to the company by FireEye's Mandiant subsidiary on March 26, 2021, after the cybersecurity firm detected post-exploitation web shell activity on an internet-accessible system within a customer's environment that had SonicWall's ES application running on a Windows Server 2012 installation. A third flaw (CVE-2021-20023) identified by FireEye was disclosed to SonicWall on April 6, 2021.
FireEye is tracking the malicious activity under the moniker UNC2682.
"These vulnerabilities were executed in conjunction to obtain administrative access and code execution on a SonicWall ES device," researchers Josh Fleischer, Chris DiGiamo, and Alex Pennino said.
The adversary leveraged these vulnerabilities, with intimate knowledge of the SonicWall application, to install a backdoor, access files, and emails, and move laterally into the victim organization's network."
A brief summary of the three flaws are below -
CVE-2021-20021 (CVSS score: 9.4) - Allows an attacker to create an administrative account by sending a crafted HTTP request to the remote host
CVE-2021-20022 (CVSS score: 6.7) - Allows a post-authenticated attacker to upload an arbitrary file to the remote host, and
CVE-2021-20023 (CVSS score: 6.7) - A directory traversal flaw that allows a post-authenticated attacker to read an arbitrary file on the remote host.
The administrative access not only enabled the attacker to exploit CVE-2021-20023 to read configuration files, counting those containing information about existing accounts as well as Active Directory credentials but also abuse CVE-2021-20022 to upload a ZIP archive containing a JSP-based web shell called BEHINDER that's capable of accepting encrypted command-and-control (C2) communications.
"With the addition of a web shell to the server, the adversary had unrestricted access to the command prompt, with the inherited permissions of the NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM account," FireEye said, adding the attacker then used "living off the land" (LotL) techniques to harvest credentials, move laterally across the network, and even "compress a subdirectory [that] contains daily archives of emails processed by SonicWall ES."
In the incident observed by the firm, the threat actor is said to have escalated their attack by conducting an internal reconnaissance activity, albeit briefly, prior to being isolated and removed from the environment, thus foiling their mission. The true motive behind the intrusion remains unclear.
SonicWall users are recommended to upgrade to 10.0.9.6173 Hotfix for Windows and 10.0.9.6177 Hotfix for hardware and ESXi virtual appliances. The SonicWall Hosted Email Security product was automatically patched on April 19 and hence no additional action is required.
UPDATE
The Milpitas-headquartered network security firm labeled the findings as an outcome of routine collaboration with third-party researchers and forensic analysis firms to ensure its products adhere to the security best practices.
"Through the course of this process, SonicWall was made aware of and verified certain zero-day vulnerabilities — in at least one known case, being exploited in the wild — to its hosted and on-premises email security products," the company said in a statement to The Hacker News. "SonicWall designed, tested and published patches to correct the issues and communicated these mitigations to customers and partners."
| Cyber_Attack |
How to Decrypt TeslaCrypt Ransomware Files Using Master Key | https://thehackernews.com/2016/05/decrypt-teslacrypt-ransomware.html | Here's some good news for victims who are trying to unlock and remove TeslaCrypt ransomware.
Now, you can decrypt all your important files that have been encrypted by TeslaCrypt ransomware.
So, stop Googling about How to decrypt TeslaCrypt Ransomware encrypted files, as the malware authors themselves provided the solution to your problem.
Since its launch in March last year, TeslaCrypt computer virus has been used in massive malvertising attacks. The ransomware, which often targets PC gamers, locks up files until a ransom is paid, usually $500 in Bitcoin. Infection generally comes through corrupted websites, malvertising or phishing emails.
In a surprising move in the malware's story, the cybercriminals behind the nefarious TeslaCrypt ransomware have apparently shut down their operations and released a master key to the public that can unlock all encrypted files on PCs infected by the latest versions of TeslaCrypt.
The icing on the cake is that the universal decryption key is free, so victims can decrypt their files without paying a single penny.
Here's what one of the developers of TeslaCrypt posted on the TeslaCrypt Dark Website:
"Project closed! Master key for decrypt: 440A241DD80FCC5664E861989DB716E08CE627D8D40C7EA360AE855C727A49EE. Wait for other people make universal decrypt software. We are sorry!"
The above note was prompted by a query from an ESET security researcher, who had noticed the successive downfall of TeslaCrypt and asked the authors for a decryption key.
The authors offered a free master key in an entirely surprising move and ESET quickly created a Free Ransomware Decryptor tool for TeslaCrypt, which is available for download from the ESET website.
How to Use Master Ransomware Decryption Key
Using the master key, security researcher has created a decryptor tool that is available for download, with detailed instructions, from the ESET website.
Bleeping Computer has also released another TeslaCrypt ransomware decryptor tool, dubbed TeslaDecoder, with a much easy-to-use interface.
| Malware |
Mysterious Avatar rootkit with API, SDK, and Yahoo Groups for C&C communication | https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/mysterious-avatar-rootkit-with-api-sdk.html | Early 2012 ESET company a mysterious malware, dubbed the Avatar rootkit (Win32/Rootkit.Avatar), advertised in the underground forums by Russian cyber crime.
"We present you here previously announced product. In connection with work on other projects, we moved the release date for the public from May to February 2013th 2012go.Now nuclear rootkit AVATAR is available for rental."
Despite the malware was described months ago it was not found and published until now, in March ESET researchers detected two droppers with different C&C servers and having different compilation time stamps as showed in the following pictures:
The Avatar rootkit appears very sophisticated, it uses two different infection techniques, the first in the dropper so as to bypass detections by HIPS, and the second one in the rootkit driver to allow the malware to be alive after system reboot, the instance detected works only on x86 systems.
The 2 level dropper for Avatar rootkit works in conjunction, the first one implements LZMA decompression for the second level dropper. Driver module and second level dropper are unique in every instance of malware thanks to a random names generator names for mutexes/events in the first level dropper.
To the second level dropper is assigned the function of escalate privilege on target system, the dropper uses two different techniques, the exploitation of the MS11-080 vulnerability with code as a public exploit from Metasploit Framework with minor changes, and COM Elevation (UAC whitelist).
The following a diagram that shows the process implemented by dropper:
Most interesting part of the exploit code of Avatar rootkit is the steps taken after exploitation, kernel-mode shellcode is in fact executed to load malicious driver, the rootkit driver is not stored on the hard drive and loads only from a memory region.
The Avatar rootkit implements a technique for loading the driver by system driver infection that appeared very effective for bypassing victim's defense, and allows the loads other kernel-mode modules exploiting the malicious system driver.
The post reports:
"In order to perform its infection, Avatar randomly chooses a driver and checks its name against a blacklist that varies for every Windows versions." "The Avatar rootkit driver is able to infect several system drivers without changing the original driver's file size."
Once loaded the Avatar rootkit driver, the malicious code executes an algorithm for infecting system drivers so as to survive after reboot, the malware is also able to detect the presence of a virtual machine environment thanks to a sophisticated technique that query BIOS to check for some specific strings related to principal machines available on the market such as VirtualBox and VMware.
The malware uses a hidden file system to store the user-mode payload module and also additional files, all the data are encrypted using a custom symmetric cipher. The hidden file storage is also used by Avatar rootkit to store additional user-mode and kernel-mode modules that malware can download and execute. Avatar rootkit doesn't store malicious modules in any standard NTFS storage, except for infected system drivers.
The principal functionality of the malware are:
command center communications
parsing configuration information
read/write into hidden file storage
communicating with the rootkit driver
installing additional user-mode and kernel-mode modules
The post highlight the flexibility of the malicious agent:
"Of course, this means the initial infection can be the starting point of a variety of malicious activities based on the modules that deployed. In our case the payload component avcmd.dll was injected into svchost.exe system process which started communicating with C&C IP addresses stored in the configuration file. "
Another interesting feature implemented by authors of the rootkit in the protection of communications with the command center with a custom encryption algorithm which output is base64-encoded, Avatar rootkit has an additional way of communicating with the C&C server searching for messages in Yahoo groups using special parameters. The technique is not new and is very efficient to protect the malware over sinkhole attempts of security firms, because information about C&C's domains is encrypted using an RSA asymmetric algorithm.
On the use of Yahoo Groups as C&C the report states:
"The group description is encrypted with an RSA algorithm and a 1024-bit private key. It is possible to decrypt this data with the public key stored in the configuration file. We suppose this information is to be found in the encrypted message used for returning control for a botnet without an active C&C."
But Avatar rootkit appears a very complex and articulated project, it is accompanied by a list of API for developing additional components based on the Avatar Runtime Library, a special SDK for developing additional user-mode components which allow communication with the Avatar rootkit driver.
Win32/Rootkit.Avatar is considerable a sophisticated rootkit family having many interesting features to avoid detection by security software, due this reason security experts believe that the agent has been developed for long term infection by the system executing the attack.
Avatar rootkit may hold many surprises in the next future.
| Vulnerability |
New Virus Decides If Your Computer Good for Mining or Ransomware | https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/cryptocurrency-mining-ransomware.html | Security researchers have discovered an interesting piece of malware that infects systems with either a cryptocurrency miner or ransomware, depending upon their configurations to decide which of the two schemes could be more profitable.
While ransomware is a type of malware that locks your computer and prevents you from accessing the encrypted data until you pay a ransom to get the decryption key required to decrypt your files, cryptocurrency miners utilize infected system's CPU power to mine digital currencies.
Both ransomware and cryptocurrency mining-based attacks have been the top threats so far this year and share many similarities such as both are non-sophisticated attacks, carried out for money against non-targeted users, and involve digital currency.
However, since locking a computer for ransom doesn't always guarantee a payback in case victims have nothing essential to losing, in past months cybercriminals have shifted more towards fraudulent cryptocurrency mining as a method of extracting money using victims' computers.
Researchers at Russian security firm Kaspersky Labs have discovered a new variant of Rakhni ransomware family, which has now been upgraded to include cryptocurrency mining capability as well.
Written in Delphi programming language, the Rakhni malware is being spread using spear-phishing emails with an MS word file in the attachment, which if opened, prompts the victim to save the document and enable editing.
The document includes a PDF icon, which if clicked, launches a malicious executable on the victim's computer and immediately displays a fake error message box upon execution, tricking victims into thinking that a system file required to open the document is missing.
How Malware Decides What To Do
However, in the background, the malware then performs many anti-VM and anti-sandbox checks to decide if it could infect the system without being caught. If all conditions are met, the malware then performs more checks to decide the final infection payload, i.e., ransomware or miner.
1.) Installs Ransomware—if the target system has a 'Bitcoin' folder in the AppData section.
Before encrypting files with the RSA-1024 encryption algorithm, the malware terminates all processes that match a predefined list of popular applications and then displays a ransom note via a text file.
2.) Installs cryptocurrency miner—if 'Bitcoin' folder doesn't exist and the machine has more than two logical processors.
If the system gets infected with a cryptocurrency miner, it uses MinerGate utility to mine Monero (XMR), Monero Original (XMO) and Dashcoin (DSH) cryptocurrencies in the background.
Besides this, the malware uses CertMgr.exe utility to install fake root certificates that claim to have been issued by Microsoft Corporation and Adobe Systems Incorporated in an attempt to disguise the miner as a trusted process.
3.) Activates worm component—if there's no 'Bitcoin' folder and just one logical processor.
This component helps the malware to copy itself to all the computers located in the local network using shared resources.
"For each computer listed in the file the Trojan checks if the folder Users is shared and, if so, the malware copies itself to the folder \AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup of each accessible user," the researchers note.
Regardless of which infection is chosen, the malware performs a check if one of the listed antivirus processes is launched. If no AV process is found in the system, the malware will run several cmd commands in an attempt to disable Windows Defender.
What's more? There's A Spyware Feature As Well
"Another interesting fact is that the malware also has some spyware functionality – its messages include a list of running processes and an attachment with a screenshot," the researchers say.
This malware variant is targeting users primarily in Russia (95.5%), while a small number of infection has been noticed in Kazakhstan (1.36%), Ukraine (0.57%), Germany (0.49%), and India (0.41%) as well.
The best way to prevent yourself from being a victim of such attacks in the first place is never to open suspicious files and links provided in an email. Also, always keep a good backup routine and updated anti-virus software in place.
| Malware |
Wormable DarkRadiation Ransomware Targets Linux and Docker Instances | https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/wormable-darkradiation-ransomware.html | Cybersecurity researchers are sounding the alarm bell over a new ransomware strain called "DarkRadiation" that's implemented entirely in Bash and targets Linux and Docker cloud containers, while banking on messaging service Telegram for command-and-control (C2) communications.
"The ransomware is written in Bash script and targets Red Hat/CentOS and Debian Linux distributions," researchers from Trend Micro said in a report published last week. "The malware uses OpenSSL's AES algorithm with CBC mode to encrypt files in various directories. It also uses Telegram's API to send an infection status to the threat actor(s)."
As of writing, there's no information available on the delivery methods or evidence that the ransomware has been deployed in real-world attacks.
The findings come from an analysis of a collection of hacking tools hosted on the unidentified threat actor's infrastructure (IP address "185.141.25.168") in a directory called "api_attack." The toolset was first noticed by Twitter user @r3dbU7z on May 28.
DarkRadiation's infection chain involves a multi-stage attack process and is noteworthy for its extensive reliance on Bash scripts to retrieve the malware and encrypt the files as well as Telegram API to communicate with the C2 server via hardcoded API keys.
Encryption Process
Said to be under active development, the ransomware leverages obfuscation tactics to scramble the Bash script using an open-source tool called "node-bash-obfuscate" to split the code into multiple chunks, followed by assigning a variable name to each segment and replacing the original script with variable references.
Upon execution, DarkRadiation checks if it's run as the root user, and if so, uses the elevated permissions to download and install Wget, cURL, and OpenSSL libraries, and takes a periodic snapshot of the users that are currently logged into a Unix computer system using the "who" command every five seconds, the results of which are then exfiltrated to an attacker-controlled server using the Telegram API.
"If any of these [libraries] are not available on the infected device, the malware attempts to download the required tools using YUM (Yellowdog Updater, Modified), a python-based package manager widely adopted by popular Linux distros such as RedHat and CentOS," SentinelOne researchers explained in a parallel write-up of DarkRadiation published Monday.
The ransomware, in its final phase of the infection, retrieves a list of all available users on the compromised system, overwrites existing user passwords with "megapassword," and deletes all shell users, but not before creating a new user with the username "ferrum" and password "MegPw0rD3" to proceed with the encryption process.
Worm-like Spreading Functionality
Interestingly, SentinelOne's analysis reveals different variations wherein the password for the user "ferrum" is downloaded from the attacker's C2 server in few versions, while in others, it is hardcoded with strings such as "$MeGaPass123#," implying that the malware is undergoing rapid changes prior to actual deployment.
"It must be noted that the ransomware appends radioactive symbols ('.☢') as a file extension for an encrypted file," Trend Micro threat researcher Aliakbar Zahravi said.
A second moving part associated with the attack is an SSH worm that's engineered to receive a credential configuration in the form of a base64-encoded parameter. Subsequently, this encoded argument is used to connect to the target system using the SSH protocol, and eventually download and execute the ransomware.
In addition to reporting the execution status, along with the encryption key, back to the adversary's Telegram channel through the API, DarkRadiation also comes with capabilities to stop and disable all running Docker containers on the infected machine, after which a ransom note is displayed to the user.
"Malware written in shell script languages allows attackers to be more versatile and to avoid some common detection methods," SentinelOne researchers said.
"As scripts do not need to be recompiled, they can be iterated upon more rapidly. Moreover, since some security software relies on static file signatures, these can easily be evaded through rapid iteration and the use of simple obfuscator tools to generate completely different script files."
| Malware |
New Fileless Ransomware with Code Injection Ability Detected in the Wild | https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/fileless-ransomware-code-injection.html | It is no secret that hackers and cybercriminals are becoming dramatically more adept, innovative, and stealthy with each passing day.
While new forms of cybercrime are on the rise, traditional activities seem to be shifting towards more clandestine techniques that come with limitless attack vectors with low detection rates.
Security researchers have recently discovered a new fileless ransomware, dubbed "Sorebrect," which injects malicious code into a legitimate system process (svchost.exe) on a targeted system and then self-destruct itself in order to evade detection.
Unlike traditional ransomware, Sorebrect has been designed to target enterprise's servers and endpoint. The injected code then initiates the file encryption process on the local machine and connected network shares.
This fileless ransomware first compromises administrator credentials by brute forcing or some other means and then uses Microsoft's Sysinternals PsExec command-line utility to encrypt files.
"PsExec can enable attackers to run remotely executed commands, instead of providing and using an entire interactive login session, or manually transferring the malware into a remote machine, like in RDPs," Trend Micro says.
Sorebrect Also Encrypts Network Shares
Sorebrect also scans the local network for other connected computers with open shares and locks files available on them as well.
"If the share has been set up such that anyone connected to it has read-and-write access to it, the share will also be encrypted," researchers say.
The nasty ransomware then deletes all event logs (using wevtutil.exe) and shadow copies (using vssadmin) on the infected machine that could provide forensic evidence such as files executed on the system and their timestamps, which makes this threat hard-to-detect.
In addition, Sorebrect uses the Tor network protocol in an attempt to anonymize its communication with its command-and-control (C&C) server, just like almost every other malware.
Sorebrect Ransomware Spreads Worldwide
The Sorebrect fileless ransomware has been designed to target systems from various industries including manufacturing, technology, and telecommunications.
According to Trend Micro, Sorebrect was initially targeting Middle Eastern countries like Kuwait and Lebanon, but from last month, this threat has started infecting people in Canada, China, Croatia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Taiwan, and the U.S.
"Given ransomware's potential impact and profitability, it wouldn't be a surprise if SOREBRECT turns up in other parts of the world, or even in the cybercriminal underground where it can be peddled as a service," the researchers note.
This is not the first time when researchers have come across Fileless malware. Two months ago, Talos researchers discovered a DNSMessenger attack that was completely Fileless and used DNS TXT messaging capabilities to compromise systems.
In February, Kaspersky researchers also discovered fileless malware that resided solely in the memory of the compromised computers, which was found targeting banks, telecommunication companies, and government organizations in 40 countries.
Ways to Protect Against Ransomware Attacks
Since the ransomware does not target individuals but organizations, sysadmins and information security professionals can protect themselves by:
Restricting user write permissions: a significant factor that exposes network shares to ransomware by giving users full permissions.
Limiting privilege for PsExec: Limit PsExec and provide permission to run them only to system administrators.
Keeping your system and network up-to-date: Always keep your operating system, software, and other applications updated.
Backing up your data regularly: To always have a tight grip on all your important files and documents, keep a good backup routine in place that makes their copies to an external storage device that is not always connected to your PC.
Adopting a cyber security-aware workforce: Educating your employees about malware, threat vectors and security measure always plays a major role in any organization.
| Malware |
Joomla 3.4.5 patches Critical SQL Injection Vulnerability | https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/joomla-security.html | Joomla – one of the most popular open source Content Management System (CMS) software packages, has reportedly patched three critical vulnerabilities in its software.
The flaws, exist in the Joomla version 3.2 to 3.4.4, include SQL injection vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to take admin privileges on most customer websites.
The patch was an upgrade to Joomla version 3.4.5 and only contained security fixes.
The vulnerability, discovered by Trustwave SpiderLabs researcher Asaf Orpani and Netanel Rubin of PerimeterX, could be exploited to attack a website with SQL injections.
SQL injection (SQLi) is an injection attack wherein a bad actor can inject/insert malicious SQL commands/query (malicious payloads) through the input data from the client to the application.
The vulnerability is one of the oldest, most powerful and most dangerous flaw that could affect any website or web application that uses an SQL-based database.
The recent SQLi in Joomla discovered by Orpani are:
CVE-2015-7297
CVE-2015-7857
CVE-2015-7858
CVE-2015-7857 enables an unauthorized remote attacker to gain administrator privileges by hijacking the admin session. Once exploited, the attacker may gain full control of the website and execute additional attacks.
The vulnerability discovered in a core module that doesn't require any extensions, therefore, all the websites that use Joomla versions 3.2 (released in November 2013) and above are vulnerable.
Researchers also discovered the related vulnerabilities, CVE-2015-7858 and CVE-2015-7297, as part of their research.
Actually the Joomla code resided in /administrator /components /com_contenthistory/ models/history.php was vulnerable to SQL injection.
Orpani came across many weak links in this code, that could:
Exploit the vulnerability to gain the administrator session key
On executing the request on Joomla site returns the admin session key
Using the admin key to hijack the session and further gaining:
Access to the /administrator/ folder
Administrator privileges
Access to the administrator Control Panel
Vulnerability in DRUPAL
The popular CMS Drupal has also patched an Open Redirect vulnerability in the Overlay module in its Core project (7.x versions prior to 7.41).
The Overlay module in Drupal core project displays administrative pages as a layer on the current page, rather than replacing the page in the browser window.
However, the module doesn't sufficiently validate URLs prior to displaying their contents, which leads to an open redirect vulnerability, according to Drupal's official blog.
The vulnerability affected the site users with administrative rights; i.e. if only the "Access the administrative overlay" permission is enabled the vulnerability could be exploited.
The fix for the open redirect vulnerability was released and required the sites to upgrade to Drupal version 7.41.
If you were not aware of these vulnerabilities, do not panic you can patch your CMS now!
| Vulnerability |
World War C report - Motives behind State Sponsored Cyber Attacks | https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/world-war-c-report-motives-behind-state_3.html | Nation-state driven cyber attacks are routinely conducted on a global scale to defend national sovereignty and project national power. We are living in the cyber era, human conflict is involving also the fifth domain of warfare, the cyberspace. As never before disputes take place with blows of bits, militias of every government are developing cyber capabilities dedicating great effort for the establishment of cyber units.
Network security company, FireEye, has released a report titled "World War C: Understanding Nation-State Motives Behind Today's Advanced Cyber Attacks" which describes the effort spent by governments in cyber warfare context, the document analyzes in detail the different approaches adopted by various countries in conducting nation-state driven cyber attacks.
Security experts highlight the intensification of state-sponsored attacks for both cyber espionage and sabotage purpose, campaigns such as Moonlight Maze and Titan Rain or the destructive cyber strikes on Iran and Georgia have signed the evolution of the military doctrine.
"Cyberspace has become a full-blown war zone as governments across the globe clash for digital supremacy in a new, mostly invisible theater of operations. Once limited to opportunistic criminals, cyber attacks are becoming a key weapon for governments seeking to defend national sovereignty and project national power."
In the arsenal of government militias are entering strongly DDoS tools, spyware and computer viruses, nation-state driven cyber attacks are considerable an optimal option by governments for the following reasons:
Reduced costs compared to conventional strikes.
Efficiency
The asymmetric nature of the cyber attacks makes difficult the defense.
The anonymous nature of the offense allows the attacking government to circumvent the approval by the world community to a military offensive.
Possibility to conduct cyber attacks in peacetime for immediate geopolitical ends, as well as to prepare for possible future kinetic attacks.
As explained in the study the attribution of responsibility for a cyber attack is a very hard task, FireEye experts correctly highlighted that to uncover the perpetrators is necessary to apply a multi layered approach based on forensic "reverse-hacking" techniques, build a deep knowledge of "patterns" of attack, evaluate the geopolitical context of cyber attacks aims associated to specific government.
"A cyber attack, viewed outside of its geopolitical context, allows very little legal maneuvering room for the defending state," "False flag operations and the very nature of the internet makes tactical attribution a losing game. However, strategic attribution – fusing all sources of intelligence on a potential threat – allows a much higher level of confidence and more options for the decision maker," "And strategic attribution begins and ends with geopolitical analysis." said Professor Thomas Wingfield of the Marshall Centre, a joint US-German defense studies institute.
"The biggest challenge to deterring, defending against, or retaliating for cyber attacks is the problem of correctly identifying the perpetrator," said Prof. John Arquilla, Naval Postgraduate School "Attribution" for a nation-state driven cyber attack is difficult due to similarity with the methods adopted by single individuals, organizations, or state-sponsored hackers. States are often mistakenly identified as non-state entities, and vice versa.
Another dangerous phenomenon that we are assisting is the growth of number of cyber mercenary groups close to governments that are structured as cyber criminal gangs but that are able to offer hacking services to involve in nation-state driven cyber attacks.
"Cybercrime organizations offer anyone, including governments, cyber attack services to include denial-of-service attacks and access to previously compromised networks." states the World War C report.
FireEye experts analyzed the Nation-state driven cyber attacks identifying the tactics and characteristics for the offensive in various regions:
Asia-Pacific: home to large, bureaucratic hacker groups, such as the "Comment Crew" who pursues targets in high-frequency, brute-force attacks.
Russia/Eastern Europe: More technically advanced cyber attacks that are often highly effective in evading detection.
Middle East: Cybercriminals in the region often using creativity, deception, and social engineering to trick users into compromising their own computers.
United States: origin of the most complex, targeted, and rigorously engineered cyber attack campaigns to date, such as the Stuxnet worm. Attackers favor a drone-like approach to malware delivery.
New players are entering the arena of cyber warfare strongly, countries such a North Korea, Iran and Syria have demonstrated to represent a serious menace also for the most industrialized superpower, this is the democracy of the new military doctrine. Examining most advanced countries in cyber warfare, China is considered responsible for the largest number of Nation-state driven cyber attacks, it uses high-volume noisly cyber attacks mainly for cyber espionage.
On the other end U.S., and Israel, providing the most advanced technologies, are able to conduct more sophisticated and surgical cyber operations, Stuxnet and Duqu are just a couple of examples of products of joint effort spent by the two governments. The Russian Government is considered one of the entities with major cyber capabilities, like Israel and US it is able to perform sophisticated nation-state driven cyber attacks, but little is known about the internal organization of its cyber units. According to rumors, a group of hackers that report directly to the President is the core of Russian cyber command that has operated in a stately way in cyberspace against hostile governments and on the domestic front against opponents of the regime.
"Though relatively quiet, Russia appears to be home to many of the most complex and advanced cyber attacks FireEye researchers have seen. More specifically, Russian exploit code can be significantly stealthier than its Chinese counterpart—which can also make it more worrisome. The "Red October" campaign, including its satellite software dubbed "Sputnik," is a prominent example of likely Russian malware." states the report.
FireEye's World War C ends proposing a list of factors that could influence the cyber security landscape in the medium term:
Outage of national critical infrastructure - we have still not assisted to cyber attacks that have compromised a national infrastructures like a power grid, but that day may not be far.
Cyber arms treaty - we are already assisting with the cyber army race for the above reasons, governments will continue to invest to increase their cyber capabilities. Following the table reporting the investment in cyber capabilities I presented to the Cyber Threat Summit 2012, let's consider that that the expense has grown despite the cuts in most cases.
PRISM, freedom of speech, and privacy - Disclosure of PRISM and other US surveillance activities will further complicate the delicate scenarios. The debate on topics such as freedom of speech and privacy could bring some "annoyance" to the intelligence activities conducted by the various governments, and nothing else in my judgment. No mistake, privacy and technology are like two separated spouses that live in the same house.
New actors on the cyber stage - cyberspace is a crowded place, Iran, Syria, North Korea, and even non state actors such as Anonymous have employed cyber attacks as a way to conduct diplomacy and wage war by other means. FireEye researchers wager of growing cyber capabilities of Poland, Brazil and Taiwan.
Stronger focus on evasion - due to the evolution of cyber defense attackers may be improve the offense with sophisticated techniques to avoid detection and fly under the radar.
Information warfare is ongoing ...
| Cyber_Attack |
Hacker Caused Panic in Dallas by Turning ON Every Emergency Siren at Once | https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/dallas-tornado-siren-hack.html | We have seen hackers flooding 911 emergency service with rogue requests to knock the service offline for an entire state, but some hacking incidents are worse than others.
One such incident took place in Dallas on Friday night when hacker triggered a network of 156 emergency warning sirens for about two hours, waking up residents and sparking fears of a disaster.
The emergency warning sirens — designed to warn citizens of the Texas about dangerous weather conditions, such as severe storms and tornados — were activated around 11:40 p.m. Friday and lasted until 1:20 a.m. Saturday.
The city officials tried to inform residents not to call 911 as there was not any emergency situation in the city, but the 911 system was nevertheless flooded with over 4,400 calls from panicked residents.
Rocky Vaz, director of Dallas Office of Emergency Management (OEM), told the Dallas Morning News that the alarms blasted about 15 times for 90-second durations. You can even watch video footage of the incident posted by some people on the social media.
Ever wonder what the end of the world feels like? #dallas #sirens pic.twitter.com/dvokKWkZ6N
— ManicPixieDreamGay (@deadlyblonde) April 8, 2017
The OEM technicians were eventually able to shut down the warning system and are working to keep this from happening again by implementing "more safeguards."
The city officials said the sirens were set off by a hacker who compromised the Dallas city's emergency alert system, but they did not disclose how the system was compromised or who may be responsible for the attack.
"We can state at this time that the City's siren system was hacked Friday night," the Dallas Public Information Office confirmed on Saturday. "For security reasons, we cannot discuss the details of how this was done, but we do believe that the hack came from the Dallas area."
The officials have notified the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for assistance in identifying the exact source of the hack.
This is the second time when some hacker has attacked critical infrastructure in the city. Last year, some unknown hacker hacked into some traffic signals in Dallas and used them to publish jokes.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings noted on his Facebook page that the incident is yet "another serious example of the need for us to upgrade and better safeguard our city's technology infrastructure," adding that they're working on identifying and prosecuting those responsible for the attack.
| Cyber_Attack |
DPScan : Drupal Security Scanner Released | https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/dpscan-drupal-security-scanner-released.html | DPScan : Drupal Security Scanner Released
The First Security scanner for Drupal CMS has been released by Ali Elouafiq, on his Blog. His team develop a tool that will enumerate at least the modules used by Drupal so we can simulate a White Box audit on our private machines.
This small tool is public and accessible to you for use however you please. It may help other auditors or penetration testers do their job faster, Here is a little demonstration. After downloading the script (in python), you simply type:
> python DPScan.py [website url]
You can download Drupal Security Scanner here.
| Vulnerability |
New Mac malware opens secure connection for a remote hacker | https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/new-mac-malware-opens-secure-connection.html | A new malware threat for the Mac has been discovered that attempting to set up a secure connection for a remote hacker to connect through and grab private information.
Dubbed "Pintsized" that uses a modified version of OpenSSH to potentially set up a remote connection into Mac accounts.
This backdoor Trojan can be used to conduct distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, or it can be used to install additional Trojans or other forms of malicious software.
Since the connection between the hacker and the machine is encrypted, it becomes very hard for the Trojan to be detected or traced. The threat has the potential to become serious, as it uses an exploit in OS X to bypass Gatekeeper and establish a reverse shell that creates a secure connection.
Trojan stays hidden by disguising itself as a file that is used for networked printers in Mac OS X. The location of the malware has been traced to this particular directory. This tactic conceals the Trojan and makes a monitor think that a printer is seeking access to the network.
Pintsized hasn't been seen in the wild yet, according to security software maker Intego, since the malware looks to still be in a proof of concept stage.
| Malware |
FBI is Investigating Theft of $1.3 Million in Bitcoin from a Massachusetts Man | https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/bitcoin-hacked.html | Over two months ago, the world's third largest Bitcoin Exchange Bitfinex lost around $72 Million worth of Bitcoins in a major hack.
Shortly after the company encountered a $72,000,000 Bitcoin theft, an unnamed Bitfinex user from Cambridge, Massachusetts, filed a police report in September, alleging that $1.3 Million of funds were stolen from his account.
Since then the Cambridge police have handed the case over to the FBI, which is working with the Bitcoin exchange as well as European authorities to recover funds stolen from the Bitfinex user, Coindesk reports.
The individual claimed that he held $3.4 Million in Bitcoin in his personal wallet hosted by the Bitfinex Bitcoin exchange. But following the August's Bitfinex breach, he was left with $2.1 Million in his account.
Bitfinex then notified the individual of his initial loss of approximately $1.3 Million in Bitcoin, but after the company issued IOU tokens as an emergency measure to keep the exchange operating, the loss incurred was reduced to just $720,000.
The IOUs or BFX tokens are a form of compensation provided to the victims to reduce their losses by a significant factor.
Although specific details remain still unclear, the Bitfinex user confirmed lose of funds beyond Bitfinex IOU tokens issued to all the victims of the breach.
The usability of the token is still unclear. Neither the explanation of tokens provided by Bitfinex is much clear, nor the legal status of the tokens is known.
"The BFX tokens will remain outstanding until repaid in full by Bitfinex or exchanged for shares of iFinex Inc," explains the company. "The specific conditions associated with the exchange of these tokens will be explained in a later announcement."
For the incident report filed by the Bitfinex user, you can head on to this link. No further details about the case are available at this moment.
Shortly after the breach of around $72 Million worth of its customers' Bitcoins, Hong Kong-based Bitcoin exchange announced a reward of $3.5 Million to anyone who can provide information that leads to the recovery of the stolen Bitcoins.
The incident was so big that the price of Bitcoin was dropped almost 20%, from $602.78 to $541 per Bitcoin, within a day after the announcement.
| Cyber_Attack |
Health Insurer Excellus Hacked; 10.5 Million Records Breached | https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/health-insurance-hacking.html | Health Care Hacks — the choice of hackers this year!
In a delayed revelation made by Excellus BlueCross BlueShield (BCBS), which says that about 10.5 Millions of their clients' data and information has been compromised by hackers.
Excellus BCBS headquartered in Rochester, New York, provides finance and health care services across upstate New York and long-term care insurance nationwide.
On August 5, 2015, Excellus BCBS discovered that the hackers targeted their IT systems back in December 2013, initiating a sophisticated attack to gain access to their systems and record client's personal data.
The Compromised Data includes:
Social Security Number (SSN)
Date of birth
Mailing address
Telephone number
Member identification number
Financial account information
Claims information
Did they forget something?...It seems everything is gone!
Moreover, it's been two years Excellus systems were open to the hackers. So, what the company was doing all this time?
Excellus BlueCross BlueShield in their statement said:
"This incident also affected members of other Blue Cross Blue Shield plans who sought treatment in the 31 county upstate New York service area of Excellus BCBS. Individuals who do business with us and provided us with their financial account information or Social Security number are also affected."
The company has hired Mandiant Incident Response Team of FireEye Inc to help investigate the matter and to bring its systems back to normal by providing adequate remediation solutions.
Though the investigation has gathered no such evidence relating to removal of data, use or misuse of the compromised data.
Further, To save customers valuable data, the company showed concerns for the affected customers and said that they are going to:
Mail letters to its customers to let them know the facts and how they can in future secure their identity.
Offer cover of two years of free identity theft protection services and credit monitoring to affected individuals.
Moreover, for others, who are worried regarding their security can contact Excellus on 1-877-589-3331 (Toll-free) to know about the incident.
At the start of this year, Cyber attacks victims in health care were:
Anthem Healthcare with data breach of 80 million (the largest of all)
Premera with approximately 11 millions of users personal data being stolen
UCLA Health System with 4.5 millions of data leaks leading to identity theft
CareFirst with affecting 1.1 million (approx) customers
All the above companies were using BlueCross BlueShield insurance plans except UCLA health system.
Also, we need to think that for what purpose the hackers are going to use this bulk information...or is it the calm before the storm?
If we notice, vendors running BCBS plans are the ones mostly affected by this data breach.
So is the BCBS Association the target of the hackers? That one after the other its vendors offering insurance services are being victims of such massive data breaches.
This indeed makes us think of the potential of not only the cyber attacks and security but also the current threats to health care and associated bio-medical devices.
| Data_Breaches |
Exim TLS Flaw Opens Email Servers to Remote 'Root' Code Execution Attacks | https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/exim-email-server-vulnerability.html | A critical remote code execution vulnerability has been discovered in the popular open-source Exim email server software, leaving at least over half a million email servers vulnerable to remote hackers.
Exim maintainers today released Exim version 4.92.2 after publishing an early warning two days ago, giving system administrators a heads-up on its upcoming security patches that affect all versions of the email server software up to and including then-latest 4.92.1.
Exim is a widely used, open source mail transfer agent (MTA) software developed for Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, Mac OSX or Solaris, which runs almost 60% of the internet's email servers today for routing, delivering and receiving email messages.
Tracked as CVE-2019-15846, the security vulnerability only affects Exim servers that accept TLS connections, potentially allowing attackers to gain root-level access to the system "by sending an SNI ending in a backslash-null sequence during the initial TLS handshake."
SNI, stands for Server Name Indication, is an extension of the TLS protocol that allows the server to safely host multiple TLS certificates for multiple sites, all under a single IP address.
According to the Exim team, since the vulnerability doesn't depend on the TLS library being used by the server, both GnuTLS and OpenSSL are affected.
Moreover, though the default configuration of the Exim mail server software doesn't come with TLS enabled, some operating systems bundled the Exim software with the vulnerable feature enabled by default.
The vulnerability was discovered by an open source contributor and security researcher who goes by the online alias Zerons and analyzed by cybersecurity experts at Qualys.
Just three months ago, Exim also patched a severe remote command execution vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-10149, that was actively exploited in the wild by various groups of hackers to compromise vulnerable servers.
The Exim advisory says that a rudimentary proof of concept (PoC) exists for this flaw, but currently there is no known exploit available to the public.
Server administrators are highly recommended to install the latest Exim 4.92.2 version immediately, and if not possible, can mitigate the issue by not allowing unpatched Exim servers to accept TLS connections.
The team says, "If you can't install the above versions, ask your package maintainer for a version containing the backported fix. On request and depending on our resources we will support you in backporting the fix."
| Vulnerability |
Hackers Are Targeting Microsoft Exchange Servers With Ransomware | https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/icrosoft-exchange-ransomware.html | It didn't take long. Intelligence agencies and cybersecurity researchers had been warning that unpatched Exchange Servers could open the pathway for ransomware infections in the wake of swift escalation of the attacks since last week.
Now it appears that threat actors have caught up.
According to the latest reports, cybercriminals are leveraging the heavily exploited ProxyLogon Exchange Server flaws to install a new strain of ransomware called "DearCry."
"Microsoft observed a new family of human operated ransomware attack customers – detected as Ransom:Win32/DoejoCrypt.A," Microsoft researcher Phillip Misner tweeted. "Human operated ransomware attacks are utilizing the Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities to exploit customers."
Microsoft's security intelligence team, in a separate tweet, confirmed that it has begun "blocking a new family of ransomware being used after an initial compromise of unpatched on-premises Exchange Servers."
Security firm Kryptos Logic said it identified about 6,970 exposed web shells, some of which were used to infect the compromised servers with DearCry ransomware, suggesting that other cybercriminal groups are piggybacking on the first-stage web shell backdoor planted by the Hafnium threat actor to install additional malware of their choice.
Calling DearCry a "copy" ransomware, Sophos Director Mark Loman said the strain creates encrypted copies of the attacked files using an encryption key embedded in the ransomware binary and deletes the original versions, thereby allowing the victims to "potentially recover some data" due to this encryption-behavior.
"Defenders should take urgent steps to install Microsoft's patches to prevent exploitation of their Microsoft Exchange patches. If this is not possible, the server should be disconnected from the internet or closely monitored by a threat response team," Loman said.
In a joint advisory published by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the agencies warned that "adversaries could exploit these vulnerabilities to compromise networks, steal information, encrypt data for ransom, or even execute a destructive attack."
Successful weaponization of the flaws allows an attacker to access victims' Exchange Servers, enabling them to gain persistent system access and control of an enterprise network. With the new ransomware threat, unpatched Servers are not only at risk of potential data theft but also get potentially encrypted, preventing access to an organization's mailboxes.
PoC Takedown From GitHub Triggers Debate
Meanwhile, as nation-state hackers and cybercriminals pile on to take advantage of the ProxyLogon flaws, a proof-of-concept (PoC) code shared on Microsoft-owned GitHub by a security researcher has been taken down by the company, citing that the exploit is under active attack.
In a statement to Vice, the company said, "In accordance with our Acceptable Use Policies, we disabled the gist following reports that it contains proof of concept code for a recently disclosed vulnerability that is being actively exploited."
The move has also sparked a debate of its own, with researchers arguing that Microsoft is "silencing security researchers" by removing PoCs shared on GitHub.
"This is huge, removing a security researchers code from GitHub against their own product and which has already been patched," TrustedSec's Dave Kennedy said. "It was a PoC, not a working exploit — none of the PoCs have had the RCE. Even if it did, that's not their call on when the appropriate time to release is. It's an issue in their own product, and they are silencing security researchers on that."
This was also echoed by Google Project Zero researcher Tavis Normandy.
"If the policy from the start was no PoC/metasploit/etc — that would suck, but it's their service," Normandy said in a tweet. "Instead they said OK, and now that it's become the standard for security pros to share code, they have elected themselves the arbiters of what is 'responsible.' How convenient."
But replying to Kennedy on Twitter, security researcher Marcus Hutchins said "'Has already been patched.' Dude, there's more than 50,000 unpatched exchange servers out there. Releasing a full ready to go RCE chain is not security research, it's recklessness and stupid."
If anything, the avalanche of attacks should serve as a warning to patch all versions of the Exchange Server as soon as possible, while also take steps to identify signs of indicators of compromise associated with the hacks, given that the attackers were exploiting these zero-day vulnerabilities in the wild for at least two months before Microsoft released the patches on March 2.
| Malware |
Critical Pre-Auth RCE Flaw Found in F5 Big-IP Platform — Patch ASAP! | https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/critical-pre-auth-rce-flaw-found-in-f5.html | Application security company F5 Networks on Wednesday published an advisory warning of four critical vulnerabilities impacting multiple products that could result in a denial of service (DoS) attack and even unauthenticated remote code execution on target networks.
The patches concern a total of seven related flaws (from CVE-2021-22986 through CVE-2021-22992), two of which were discovered and reported by Felix Wilhelm of Google Project Zero in December 2020.
The four critical flaws affect BIG-IP versions 11.6 or 12.x and newer, with a critical pre-auth remote code execution (CVE-2021-22986) also affecting BIG-IQ versions 6.x and 7.x. F5 said it's not aware of any public exploitation of these issues.
Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could lead to a full compromise of vulnerable systems, including the possibility of remote code execution as well as trigger a buffer overflow, leading to a DoS attack.
Urging customers to update their BIG-IP and BIG-IQ deployments to a fixed version as soon as possible, F5 Networks' Kara Sprague said the "vulnerabilities were discovered as a result of regular and continuous internal security testing of our solutions and in partnership with respected third parties working through F5's security program."
The vulnerabilities have been addressed in the following products:
BIG-IP versions: 16.0.1.1, 15.1.2.1, 14.1.4, 13.1.3.6, 12.1.5.3, and 11.6.5.3
BIG-IQ versions: 8.0.0, 7.1.0.3, and 7.0.0.2
Besides these flaws, Wednesday's patches also include fixes for 14 other unrelated security issues.
The fixes are notable for the fact that it's the second time in as many years that F5 has revealed flaws that could allow remote code execution.
The latest update to BIG-IP software arrives less than a year after the company addressed a similar critical flaw (CVE-2020-5902) in early July 2020, with multiple hacking groups exploiting the bug to target unpatched devices, prompting the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to issue an alert cautioning of a "broad scanning activity for the presence of this vulnerability across federal departments and agencies."
"This bug is probably going to fly under the radar, but this is a much bigger deal than it looks because it says something is really really broken in the internal security process of F5 BIG-IP devices," said Matt "Pwn all the Things" Tait in a tweet.
| Malware |
Unbreakable Apple's iMessage encryption is vulnerable to eavesdropping attack | https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/unbreakable-apples-imessage-encryption.html | Though Apple claims iMessage has end-to-end encryption, But researchers claimed at a security conference that Apple's iMessage system is not protected and the company can easily access it.
Cyril Cattiaux - better known as pod2g, who has developed iOS jailbreak software, said that the company's claim about iMessage protection by unbreakable encryption is just a lie, because the weakness is in the key infrastructure as it is controlled by Apple: they can change a key anytime they want, thus read the content of our iMessages.
Basically, when you send an iMessage to someone, you grab their public key from Apple, and encrypt your message using that public key. On the other end, recipients have their own private key that they use to decrypt this message. A third-party won't be able to see the actual message unless they have access to the private key.
Trust and public keys always have a problem, but the researchers noted that there's no evidence that Apple or the NSA is actually reading iMessages, but say that it's possible. "Apple has no reason to do so. But what of intelligence agencies?" he said.
The researchers were able to create a bogus certificate authority and then add it to an iPhone Keychain to proxify SSL encrypted communications to and from the device, and in the process discovered that their AppleID and password was being transmitted in clear text.
He says that since Apple controls the public key directory that gives you the public key for every user, it could perform a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack to intercept your messages if asked to by a government agency.
A solution for Apple would be to store public keys locally in a protected database within iOS, as then the keys could be compared.
| Vulnerability |
Rogue software update cause Malware attack on Japanese Nuclear Power Plant | https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/rogue-software-update-cause-malware_9.html | The most critical and worst target of a State-sponsored cyber-attacks could be Hospitals, Dams, Dykes and Nuclear power stations and this may cause military conflicts between countries.
According to Japan Today, The Monju nuclear power plant in Tsuruga, Japan was accidentally targeted by a malware on 2nd January, when a worker updated the system to the latest version of the video playback program.
Monju Nuclear Plant is a sodium-cooled fast reactor, was launched in April 1994. It has not been operational for most of the past 20 years, after an accident in which a sodium leak caused a major fire.
Employees over there are only left with a regular job of company's paperwork and maintenance. So the malware could have stolen only some sensitive documents, emails, training records and employees' data sheets. The Malware command-and-control server suspected to be from South Korea.
The malware itself is not much sophisticated like Stuxnet or Duqu, but the unmanaged software update and patch management system can seriously lead to a critical cyber attack. Even being isolated from the Internet does not prevent you from being infected.
One of the best examples of flawed Internal policies is Stuxnet, one of the most infamous pieces of malware ever created to destroy Iranian Nuclear plants and infected the systems through a USB stick only.
Also in November, The Kaspersky revealed that Russian astronauts carried a removable device into space which infected systems on the space station.
| Data_Breaches |
Hacking Facebook users just from chat box using multiple vulnerabilities | https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/hacking-facebook-users-just-from-chat.html | Nir Goldshlager, Founder/CEO at Break Security known for finding serious flaws in Facebook once again on The Hacker News for sharing his new finding i.e Stored Cross-site Scripting (XSS) in Facebook Chat, Check In and Facebook Messenger.
Stored Cross-site Scripting (XSS) is the most dangerous type of Cross Site Scripting. Web applications where the injected code is permanently stored on the target servers, such as in a database, in a message forum, visitor log, comment field, etc
1.) Stored XSS In Facebook Chat: This vulnerability can be used to conduct a number of browser-based attacks including, Hijacking another user's browser, Capturing sensitive information viewed by application users, Malicious code is executed by the user's browser etc.
When a user starts a new message within Facebook that has a link inside, a preview GUI shows up for that post. The GUI is used for presenting the link post using a parameter i.e attachment[params][title],attachment[params][urlInfo][final] , which was not actually filtered for valid links by Facebook.
For proof of concept, Goldshlager exploit this flaw in a way, that each time the victim clicks on this malicious message in Facebook Chat, the Stored XSS will begin to run on their client, as shown:
2.) Stored XSS In Facebook Check-In: The other major and an interesting Stored XSS that Nir reported is in the Facebook Check-In Screen. To exploit this loophole the attackers needs to first construct a new location within Facebook Pages and then, the attacker must change the settings in those new location. When the victim later decides to go to the place the attacker has been, a Stored XSS will run client-side.
3.) Stored XSS In Facebook Messenger (Windows): 3rd and serious flaw in Facebook is capable of injecting a Stored XSS Payload in Facebook Messenger for Windows. Any time the victim sign in into their account in the Messenger, the Stored XSS code will execute on victim's end.
Video Demonstrations
Bugs was reported to Facebook last month by Nir and already patched by Facebook security team.
Old Finding by Nir:
Facebook OAuth flaw allows gaining full control over any Facebook account
Facebook hacking accounts using another OAuth vulnerability
URL Redirection flaw in Facebook apps push OAuth vulnerability again in action
| Vulnerability |
Crimepack 3.1.3 Exploit kit Leaked, available for Download ! | https://thehackernews.com/2011/05/crimepack-313-exploit-kit-leaked.html | Crimepack 3.1.3 Exploit kit Leaked, available for Download !
Part 1: Java Exploit
As stated above, I focus on a malware that exploits a recent JRE vulnerability: CVE-2010-0840 to execute malicious files on a victim system. This malware comes inside a jar file, which contains the following two classes: Crimepack.class and KAVS.class.
Part 1.1: Crimepack.class
This class is the engine of the malware, it is obfuscated, but you can quickly strip off the obfuscation (my python beta tool is great…), once you get rid of the obfuscation you can see the following code:
As always, we have an Applet that access to the data parameter, generates a random name for the exe payload that will be dropped in the system temp directory and then executed. So at this point as you can see we have nothing new, the above is a common Java downloader… but let's scroll down:
Above, we can see that the malware is creating a new instance of the KAVS class (description follows), in order to trigger the JRE vulnerability by using a call to the getValue() method (..snipped above..).
Part 1.2: KAVS.class
Here is the hand-crafted class, I say hand-crafted because such class cannot be compiled by using a standard compiler, so you have to edit the compiled class by editing the bytecode:
Part 2: PDF-generator on demand
The kit contains a nice php script that drops custom pdf on-demand, which means that you can have several mutations of the same piece of malware, by simply connecting to a malicious link.
Download Here : https://www.multiupload.com/3HGKHWMRS5
Source
| Malware |
DNS cache poisoning attack on Google, Gmail, YouTube, Yahoo, Apple | https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/dns-cache-poisoning-attack-on-google.html | DNS cache poisoning attack on Google, Gmail, YouTube, Yahoo, Apple
Hacker with nickname AlpHaNiX deface Google, Gmail, Youtube, Yahoo, Apple etc domains of Democratic Republic of Congo. Hacker use strategy so-called DNS cache poisoning.
DNS cache poisoning is a security or data integrity compromise in the Domain Name System (DNS). The compromise occurs when data is introduced into a DNS name server's cache database that did not originate from authoritative DNS sources. It may be a deliberate attempt of a maliciously crafted attack on a name server.
Hacked websites are :
https://apple.cd/
https://yahoo.cd/
https://gmail.cd/
https://google.cd/
https://youtube.cd/
https://linux.cd/
https://samsung.cd/
https://hotmail.cd/
https://microsoft.cd/
[Source]
| Vulnerability |
New Mac Malware 'Dockster' Found on Dalai Lama site | https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/new-mac-malware-dockster-found-on-dalai.html | A new trojan horse app called Dockster is targeting Mac users by exploiting a known Java vulnerability CVE-2012-0507. The trojan is apparently being delivered through a website (gyalwarinpoche.com) dedicated to the Dalai Lama and once installed can collect user keystrokes and other personal information.
Mac in Danger ? Earlier this spring, a Russian security firm discovered a trojan piece of malware which took advantage of a Java vulnerability on many computers, Macs and PCs alike. This trojan, known as "Flashback," was used to enlist some 600,000 infected computers into a botnet.
Malware also provides an interface that allows attackers to download and execute additional malware. Dockster has been found to use the same exploit code as the previous SabPab virus to gain access through a backdoor. Dockster is also said to launch an agent called mac.dockset.deman, which restarts each time a user logs in to their Mac.
Dockster is only the latest Mac-based threat to hit organizations and people sympathetic to Tibet's conflict with the Chinese government.
In April, another piece of malware, known as "Backdoor.OSX.SabPub," or "SabPub" was found and distributed through Microsoft Office files sent to those who may sympathize with Tibet. The attackers behind SabPub used a technique known as "Spear-Phishing," a practice used to target smaller groups of people as opposed to sending out mass emails in hopes that someone will click a link.
In September, security firm AlienVault said it had discovered the creator of the PlugX Remote Access Tool (RAT), which had been used by hackers from various countries to target Tibet. The creator hailed from China.
| Malware |
First Android Clipboard Hijacking Crypto Malware Found On Google Play Store | https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/android-clickboard-hijacking.html | A security researcher has discovered yet another cryptocurrency-stealing malware on the official Google Play Store that was designed to secretly steal bitcoin and cryptocurrency from unwitting users.
The malware, described as a "Clipper," masqueraded as a legitimate cryptocurrency app and worked by replacing cryptocurrency wallet addresses copied into the Android clipboard with one belonging to attackers, ESET researcher Lukas Stefanko explained in a blog post.
Since cryptocurrency wallet addresses are made up of long strings of characters for security reasons, users usually prefer copying and pasting the wallet addresses using the clipboard over typing them out.
The newly discovered clipper malware, dubbed Android/Clipper.C by ESET, took advantage of this behavior to steal users cryptocurrency.
To do this, attackers first tricked users into installing the malicious app that impersonated a legitimate cryptocurrency service called MetaMask, claiming to let users run Ethereum decentralized apps in their web browsers without having to run a full Ethereum node.
Officially, the legitimate version of MetaMask is only available as a web browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, Opera, or Brave, and is not yet launched on any mobile app stores.
However, Stefanko spotted the malicious MetaMask app on Play Store targeting users who want to use the mobile version of the service by changing their legitimate cryptocurrency wallet address to the hacker's own address via the clipboard.
As a result, users who intended to transfer funds into a cryptocurrency wallet of their choice would instead make a deposit into the attacker's wallet address pasted by the malicious app.
"Several malicious apps have been caught previously on Google Play impersonating MetaMask. However, they merely phished for sensitive information with the goal of accessing the victims' cryptocurrency funds," Stefanko said.
"Android Clipper targeted Bitcoin and Ethereum cryptocurrency addresses when being copied in to clipboard and replaced them with the attacker's wallet address. Once this transaction is sent, it can not be canceled."
Stefanko spotted the malicious MetaMask app, which he believes was the first Android Trojan Clipper to be discovered on Play Store, shortly after its introduction to the app store on February 1.
Google took down the malicious app almost immediately after being notified by the researcher.
While the bitcoin price has been dropped steadily since hitting its all-time high in December 2017, there is no reduction (in fact rise) in the cryptocurrency scandals, thefts, and scams that continue to plague the industry.
Just last week, The Hacker News reported how customers of the largest Canadian bitcoin exchange QuadrigaCX lost $145 million in cryptocurrency after the sudden death of its owner who was the only one with access to the company's cold (offline) storage wallets. However, some users and researchers are suggesting the incident could be an exit scam.
| Malware |
The FixMeStick : My Parents Need This | https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/the-fixmestick-my-parents-need-this.html | The founders over at FixMeStick sent us a pair of their latest devices to check out. The FixMeStick is, in short, a malware removal device for dummies. The FixMeStick is a bootable USB device running Lubuntu and integrates three separate anti-virus scanners from Kaspersky Labs, Sophos, and GFI. While our readers will probably never need it for themselves, we may all wish we had something like this for our non-technical friends and family, or the 9 million PCs infected with ZeroAccess botnet. The FixMeStick does a lot of things that nobody else does on a bootable USB, and let's be real, removing rootkits is never pleasant or easy.
Why I Want it For My Parents
Linux: the FixMeStick is a Linux-based device that runs before Windows boots enabling it to remove infections without the infection getting stealthy or playing war with my parent's anti-virus software.
N-Scanner architecture: contains an integrated multi-scanner composed of three engines: Kaspersky Labs, Sophos, and GFI's VIPRE.
Full screen app: all the technology is integrated behind a single full-screen application, my parents never see Linux, or any of the three anti-virus engines. Typical Linux shortcut keys still work, but there's no risk of my mother wandering off into vi.
It's the easiest thing to use: right out of the box my parents just plug it into a USB port and double-click "Run FixMeStick". There's no software to install. The FixMeStick does this clever little hack with the Windows boot manager getting Windows to boot the FixMeStick one time. This means my parents don't have to futz with the BIOS, but you still can if you want to.
WiFi: supports wireless adapters and automatically finds my parents SSID and password from the Windows side and sets up the connection. My parents do nothing. I get no phone call from them. Automatic updates are fetched and stored directly on the FixMeStick.
It boots on everything: the boot-loader is setup such that it can support different boot configurations without my parents having to do anything. BIOS compatibility has been a killer to Live USBs, but we've not found a PC the FixMeStick will not boot on, including the fancy VAIOs that ship with a Boot From External Device setting off by default.
Out-of-band-management: this is quite cool, there's a remote connection client built into the FixMeStick, so if my parents need support, the FixMeStick engineers can connect directly to the device without my parents having to do anything other than provide the randomly generated userid and password generated by the app.
What's Not Good:
Out-of-band-management! A bad actor could call my parents and tell them to plug in the FixMeStick and get the userid\password. Of course, such a social engineering attack is possible whether there's a FixMeStick in the house or not.
Denial of Service: Malware can deny access to the FixMeStick by smoking the MBR or the Linux files. There are a few ways to fix this, and you probably know what they are, and we expect to see one implemented in the next major version of the FixMeStick.
50% Discounts for The Hacker News readers:
Overall, we like this product. It's practical and well built. And while the digital futurists may be calling the end of the PC, the next massive botnet is not likely to run on iOS or Android. The FixMeStick provides a practical means for non-technical people to clean their own PCs.
Other, back of the box type information:
$49.99, with free shipping to anywhere in the world.
Toll free support with the real security people.
Works an unlimited number of times on up to 3 different PCs for a year. The PC count is reset each calendar month so people don't have to worry about adding\retiring PCs.
When the year is up, recharges can be purchased from www.FixMeStick.com.
The Windows launcher works on Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8.
A minimum of 512MB RAM on the host PC.
Here's a coupon for the first 50 The Hacker News readers for 50% off the FixMeStick: FixMeStick-THN. You can have it shipped directly to your parents ;)
| Malware |
Researcher Demonstrates 4 New Variants of HTTP Request Smuggling Attack | https://thehackernews.com/2020/08/http-request-smuggling.html | A new research has identified four new variants of HTTP request smuggling attacks that work against various commercial off-the-shelf web servers and HTTP proxy servers.
Amit Klein, VP of Security Research at SafeBreach who presented the findings today at the Black Hat security conference, said that the attacks highlight how web servers and HTTP proxy servers are still susceptible to HTTP request smuggling even after 15 years since they were first documented.
What is HTTP Request Smuggling?
HTTP request smuggling (or HTTP Desyncing) is a technique employed to interfere with the way a website processes sequences of HTTP requests that are received from one or more users.
Vulnerabilities related to HTTP request smuggling typically arise when the front-end (a load balancer or proxy) and the back-end servers interpret the boundary of an HTTP request differently, thereby allowing a bad actor to send (or "smuggle") an ambiguous request that gets prepended to the next legitimate user request.
This desynchronization of requests can be exploited to hijack credentials, inject responses to users, and even steal data from a victim's request and exfiltrate the information to an attacker-controlled server.
The technique was first demonstrated in 2005 by a group of researchers from Watchfire, including Klein, Chaim Linhart, Ronen Heled, and Steve Orrin. But in the last five years, a number of improvements have been devised, significantly expanding on the attack surface to splice requests into others and "gain maximum privilege access to internal APIs," poison web caches, and compromise login pages of popular applications.
What's New?
The new variants disclosed by Klein involve using various proxy-server combinations, including Aprelium's Abyss, Microsoft IIS, Apache, and Tomcat in the web-server mode, and Nginx, Squid, HAProxy, Caddy, and Traefik in the HTTP proxy mode.
The list of all new four new variants is as below, including an old one that the researcher successfully exploited in his experiments.
Variant 1: "Header SP/CR junk: …"
Variant 2 – "Wait for It"
Variant 3 – HTTP/1.2 to bypass mod_security-like defense
Variant 4 – a plain solution
Variant 5 – "CR header"
When handling HTTP requests containing two Content-Length header fields, Abyss, for example, was found to accept the second header as valid, whereas Squid used the first Content-Length header, thus leading the two servers to interpret the requests differently and achieve request smuggling.
In situations where Abyss gets an HTTP request with a body whose length is less than the specified Content-Length value, it waits for 30 seconds to fulfill the request, but not before ignoring the remaining body of the request. Klein found that this also results in discrepancies between Squid and Abyss, with the latter interpreting portions of the outbound HTTP request as a second request.
A third variant of the attack uses HTTP/1.2 to circumvent WAF defenses as defined in OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set (CRS) for preventing HTTP request smuggling attacks craft a malicious payload that triggers the behavior.
Lastly, Klein discovered that using the "Content-Type: text/plain" header field was sufficient to bypass paranoia level checks 1 and 2 specified in CRS and yield an HTTP Request Smuggling vulnerability.
What Are the Possible Defenses?
After the findings were disclosed to Aprelium, Squid, and OWASP CRS, the issues were fixed in Abyss X1 v2.14, Squid versions 4.12, and 5.0.3 and CRS v3.3.0.
Calling for normalization of outbound HTTP Requests from proxy servers, Klein stressed the need for an open source, robust web application firewall solution that's capable of handling HTTP Request Smuggling attacks.
"ModSecurity (combined with CRS) is indeed an open source project, but as for robustness and genericity, mod_security has several drawbacks," Klein noted. "It doesn't provide full protection against HTTP Request Smuggling [and] it is only available for Apache, IIS and nginx."
To this end, Klein has published a C++-based library that ensures that all incoming HTTP requests are entirely valid, compliant, and unambiguous by enforcing strict adherence to HTTP header format and request line format. It can be accessed from GitHub here.
| Cyber_Attack |
Bad Rabbit: New Ransomware Attack Rapidly Spreading Across Europe | https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/bad-rabbit-ransomware-attack.html | A new widespread ransomware attack is spreading like wildfire around Europe and has already affected over 200 major organisations, primarily in Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and Germany, in the past few hours.
Dubbed "Bad Rabbit," is reportedly a new Petya-like targeted ransomware attack against corporate networks, demanding 0.05 bitcoin (~ $285) as ransom from victims to unlock their systems.
According to an initial analysis provided by the Kaspersky, the ransomware was distributed via drive-by download attacks, using fake Adobe Flash players installer to lure victims' in to install malware unwittingly.
"No exploits were used, so the victim would have to manually execute the malware dropper, which pretends to be an Adobe Flash installer. We've detected a number of compromised websites, all of which were news or media websites." Kaspersky Lab said.
However, security researchers at ESET have detected Bad Rabbit malware as 'Win32/Diskcoder.D' — a new variant of Petya ransomware, also known as Petrwrap, NotPetya, exPetr and GoldenEye.
Bad Rabbit ransomware uses DiskCryptor, an open source full drive encryption software, to encrypt files on infected computers with RSA 2048 keys.
ESET believes the new wave of ransomware attack is not using EternalBlue exploit — the leaked SMB vulnerability which was used by WannaCry and Petya ransomware to spread through networks.
Instead it first scans internal network for open SMB shares, tries a hardcoded list of commonly used credentials to drop malware, and also uses Mimikatz post-exploitation tool to extract credentials from the affected systems.
The ransom note, shown above, asks victims to log into a Tor onion website to make the payment, which displays a countdown of 40 hours before the price of decryption goes up.
The affected organisations include Russian news agencies Interfax and Fontanka, payment systems on the Kiev Metro, Odessa International Airport and the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine.
Researchers are still analyzing Bad Rabbit ransomware to check if there is a way to decrypt computers without paying ransomware and how to stop it from spreading further.
How to Protect Yourself from Ransomware Attacks?
Kaspersky suggest to disable WMI service to prevent the malware from spreading over your network.
Most ransomware spread through phishing emails, malicious adverts on websites, and third-party apps and programs.
So, you should always exercise caution when opening uninvited documents sent over an email and clicking on links inside those documents unless verifying the source to safeguard against such ransomware infection.
Also, never download any app from third-party sources, and read reviews even before installing apps from official stores.
To always have a tight grip on your valuable data, keep a good backup routine in place that makes their copies to an external storage device that isn't always connected to your PC.
Make sure that you run a good and effective anti-virus security suite on your system, and keep it up-to-date.
| Cyber_Attack |
Yahoo data leak by Virus_Hima, Why do we need a proactive security? | https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/yahoo-data-leak-by-virushima-why-do-we.html | In November I was contacted for first time by the Egyptian Hacker named ViruS_HimA who announced me to have hacked into Adobe servers and leaked private data.
The hacker violated Adobe servers gaining full access and dumping the entire database with more of 150,000 emails and hashed passwords of Adobe employees and customers/partner of the firm such as US Military, USAF, Google, Nasa DHL and many other companies.
ViruS_HimA specifically addressed the inefficient and slow patch management process that leaves exposed for long period "big companies".
"When someone report vulnerability to them, It take 5-7 days for the notification that they've received your report!! It even takes 3-4 months to patch the vulnerabilities! Such big companies should really respond very fast and fix the security issues as fast as they can."
Like , we reported two days before that one month old reported critical vulnerability of account hijacking in Outlook and Hotmail is still working and Microsoft is not in any mood to fix it soon.
In a blog post, Adobe confirm that their "Adobe Connect conferencing service" forum was compromised and that the its database belongs only to the forum. Adobe also confirmed that "not appear that any other Adobe services effected"
The attack wasn't politically motivated, ViruS_HimA desired to demonstrate how much vulnerable are also big enterprises such as Adobe, one of the most important company in IT landscape that leaks of a proper security defense. In that occasion the hacker anticipated a new striking attack against Yahoo.
"Don't be like Microsoft,Yahoo security teams!! but be like Google security team" Qouted from Hima. As promised, the day has come, Yahoo data was stolen by Virus_Hima, that published the announcement on Pastebin and also on AnonPaste.
In the first part of the post the hacker confirm to be a single individual with ethical intents, he is a passionate penetration tester that already found tens of 0-days vulnerabilities in big web sites such as Adobe/Micorsoft/Yahoo/Google/Apple/Facebook and many more.
The hacker doesn't desire to damage the business of any company, he declared: "I've published only little records for Adobe and I will never use/share/sell/publish Adobe/Yahoo data/exploits anywhere"
The situation appears paradoxical, according Virus_Hima the Yahoo company never replied to his alerts demonstrating the low attention to security questions : "So i decided to teach both of them a hard lesson to harden them security procedures. It would make a disaster if such companies vulnerabilities was privately used in the underground and they never know about it! not only their customers been affected but the vendors themselves also suffer from such exploits. Adobe acrobat/flash, Yahoo data leak of that 400k emails, and that hotmail remote password reset vulnerabilities is an example.. "
The hacker to be credible decided to leak critical emails such as military ones to force companies to take action. He highlighted that acting in this was obtained a fast response, just one day, in the past when in similar situation he alerted the victims, the enterprises have released a patch in 3 or 4 months.
Following the proofs of the hack proposed by the Egyptian hacker:
1.) Leaks contains: Full files backup for one of Yahoo domains!! [Lead to full access on the server of that domain] Full access to "12" of Yahoo Databases!! [Lead to full access on the server of that domain] Reflected-XSS(Cross Site Scripting) vulnerability.
2. ) Hints for DB's names: Pr***tionH**s, k*az*y << fair eh?
3.) XSS(Cross Site Scripting) vulnerability :
The hacker desires also to inform the readers that he never sold Yahoo exploit before, the guy that done it in the past for 700$ is a different person.
"I'm not the one on the news who is selling the Yahoo xss for 700$, you may noticed that his name is "TheHell" idk why that krebsonShitz is linking me to that attack! why i don't sell things I got here? while it's awesome stuff not just XSS!!! 2- I'm not planning to do any more leaks soon!"
ViruS_HimA is a good guy that lives for security and believes in what he does, I consider this hacks very useful for the victims, a lesson to learn, an opportunity to make treasure of errors that everyone could commit.
The real error in cases like this is to remain deaf to the alarms, Vurus_HimA closed the saying: "Always be proactive not reactive in safeguarding your critical data."
I totally share his thought.
| Vulnerability |
Critical RCE Vulnerability Found in VMware vCenter Server — Patch Now! | https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/critical-rce-vulnerability-found-in.html | VMware has rolled out patches to address a critical security vulnerability in vCenter Server that could be leveraged by an adversary to execute arbitrary code on the server.
Tracked as CVE-2021-21985 (CVSS score 9.8), the issue stems from a lack of input validation in the Virtual SAN (vSAN) Health Check plug-in, which is enabled by default in the vCenter Server. "A malicious actor with network access to port 443 may exploit this issue to execute commands with unrestricted privileges on the underlying operating system that hosts vCenter Server," VMware said in its advisory.
VMware vCenter Server is a server management utility that's used to control virtual machines, ESXi hosts, and other dependent components from a single centralized location. The flaw affects vCenter Server versions 6.5, 6.7, and 7.0 and Cloud Foundation versions 3.x and 4.x. VMware credited Ricter Z of 360 Noah Lab for reporting the vulnerability.
The patch release also rectifies an authentication issue in the vSphere Client that affects Virtual SAN Health Check, Site Recovery, vSphere Lifecycle Manager, and VMware Cloud Director Availability plug-ins (CVE-2021-21986, CVSS score: 6.5), thereby allowing an attacker to carry out actions permitted by the plug-ins without any authentication.
While VMware is strongly recommending customers to apply the "emergency change," the company has published a workaround to set the plug-ins as incompatible. "Disablement of these plug-ins will result in a loss of management and monitoring capabilities provided by the plug-ins," the company noted.
"Organizations who have placed their vCenter Servers on networks that are directly accessible from the Internet [...] should audit their systems for compromise," VMware added. "They should also take steps to implement more perimeter security controls (firewalls, ACLs, etc.) on the management interfaces of their infrastructure."
CVE-2021-21985 is the second critical vulnerability that VMware has rectified in the vCenter Server. Earlier this February, it resolved a remote code execution vulnerability in a vCenter Server plug-in (CVE-2021-21972) that could be abused to run commands with unrestricted privileges on the underlying operating system hosting the server.
The fixes for the vCenter flaws also come after the company patched another critical remote code execution bug in VMware vRealize Business for Cloud (CVE-2021-21984, CVSS score: 9.8) due to an unauthorized endpoint that could be exploited by a malicious actor with network access to run arbitrary code on the appliance.
Previously, VMware had rolled out updates to remediate multiple flaws in VMware Carbon Black Cloud Workload and vRealize Operations Manager solutions.
| Vulnerability |
Adobe releases open source malware classification tool | https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/adobe-releases-open-source-malware.html | Adobe releases open source malware classification tool
Adobe Systems has released a malware classification tool in order to help security incident first responders, malware analysts and security researchers more easily identify malicious binary files.
The 'Adobe Malware Classifier' tool uses machine learning algorithms to classify Windows executable and dynamic link library (DLL) files as clean, malicious or unknown, Adobe security engineer Karthik Raman said in a recent blog post, Raman originally developed Malware Classifier for in-house use by Adobe's Product Security Incident Response (PSIRT) Team.
When run, the tool extracts seven key attributes from every analyzed binary file and compares them to data obtained by running the J48, J48 Graft, PART, and Ridor machine-learning algorithms on a set of 100,000 malicious programs and 16,000 clean ones, Raman said.
"Malware classification can be a difficult task for even experienced analysts, especially in the modern era of highly obfuscated code, binaries that are designed to evade scanners and anti-malware applications. Determining whether an odd binary is potentially malicious can be a frustrating and time-consuming task".
It is available for download from SourceForge.
| Malware |
Hackers Can Remotely Access Syringe Infusion Pumps to Deliver Fatal Overdoses | https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/hacking-infusion-pumps.html | Internet-of-things are turning every industry into the computer industry, making customers think that their lives would be much easier with smart devices. However, such devices could potentially be compromised by hackers.
There are, of course, some really good reasons to connect certain devices to the Internet.
But does everything need to be connected? Of course, not—especially when it comes to medical devices.
Medical devices are increasingly found vulnerable to hacking. Earlier this month, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recalled 465,000 pacemakers after they were found vulnerable to hackers.
Now, it turns out that a syringe infusion pump used in acute care settings could be remotely accessed and manipulated by hackers to impact the intended operation of the device, ICS-CERT warned in an advisory issued on Thursday.
An independent security researcher has discovered not just one or two, but eight security vulnerabilities in the Medfusion 4000 Wireless Syringe Infusion Pump, which is manufactured by Minnesota-based speciality medical device maker Smiths Medical.
The devices are used across the world for delivering small doses of medication in acute critical care, such as neonatal and pediatric intensive care and the operating room.
Some of these vulnerabilities discovered by Scott Gayou are high in severity that can easily be exploited by a remote attacker to "gain unauthorized access and impact the intended operation of the pump."
According to the ICS-CERT, "Despite the segmented design, it may be possible for an attacker to compromise the communications module and the therapeutic module of the pump."
The most critical vulnerability (CVE-2017-12725) has been given a CVSS score of 9.8 and is related to the use of hard-coded usernames and passwords to automatically establish a wireless connection if the default configuration is not changed.
The high-severity flaws include:
A buffer overflow bug (CVE-2017-12718) that could be exploited for remote code execution on the target device in certain conditions.
Lack of authentication (CVE-2017-12720) if the pump is configured to allow FTP connections.
Presence of hard-coded credentials (CVE-2017-12724) for the pump's FTP server.
Lack of proper host certificate validation (CVE-2017-12721), leaving the pump vulnerable to man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks.
The remaining are medium severity flaws which could be exploited by attackers to crash the communications and operational modules of the device, authenticate to telnet using hard-coded credentials, and obtain passwords from configuration files.
These vulnerabilities impact devices that are running versions 1.1, 1.5 and 1.6 of the firmware, and Smiths Medical has planned to release a new product version 1.6.1 in January 2018 to address these issues.
But in the meantime, healthcare organizations are recommended to apply some defensive measures including assigning static IP addresses to pumps, monitoring network activity for malicious servers, installing the pump on isolated networks, setting strong passwords, and regularly creating backups until patches are released.
| Vulnerability |
Equifax Data Breach: Steps You should Take to Protect Yourself | https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/equifax-data-breach.html | Equifax has suffered one of the largest data breaches in history that has left highly sensitive data of as many as 143 million people—that's nearly half of the US population—in the hands of hackers.
Based on the company's investigation, some unknown hackers managed to exploit a security flaw on the Equifax website and gained unauthorized access to certain files between mid-May and July 2017.
The information accessed primarily include full names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, addresses and, in some cases, driver's license numbers—most of the information that's banks, insurance companies, and other businesses use to confirm a consumer identity.
The company added that 209,000 credit card numbers were also obtained by the attackers, along with "certain dispute documents with personal identifying information for approximately 182,000 U.S. consumers."
Equifax is one of the three major organizations in the United States that calculates credit scores, which means the company has access to an extraordinary amount of personal and financial information for virtually all American adults.
Here's How Roughly Equifax Handled the Massive Data Breach
For a second, keep aside the scope and severity of the data breach, and let's talk about the how Equifax handled the breach after discovering it and what all it did for its customers.
First of all, the third largest U.S. credit reporting firm took over five weeks to publically disclose the data breach, which began in mid-May that means the data of 143 million people were exposed for over 3 months.
What's more? Reportedly, three senior Equifax executives, namely John Gamble (CFO), Joseph Loughran and Rodolfo Ploder, were permitted to sell almost $2 million worth of their shares just days after the company learned of this massive hack.
However, the company officials told Bloomberg that the employees were unaware of the data breach at the time of the sale.
Wait there's even more: After revealing the data breach on Thursday, Equifax did not contact everyone who was affected, rather it asked customers to go to its special website to figure out whether they were affected by entering the last 6 digits of their SSN and last name.
But it's not that simple. The website is not giving a clear answer about whether or not your data may have been affected, but making it clear to those who were not exposed. It's confusing.
What Would Be Hackers Next Move?
With this data in hand, it's most likely that hackers are already selling your personal information on the dark web or attempting to extort the company, like cyber criminals do in most massive data breach cases.
The Game of Thrones hackers did the same by leaking upcoming episodes of the widely watched show after HBO refused to their $6 Million ransom demand for the 1.5 terabytes of data they claimed to have stolen from the company.
Same happened to Netflix in April this year when the company refused to meet 50 Bitcoins ransom demand of a hacking group calling itself The Dark Overlord, which then leaked 10 back-to-back episodes of the Season 5 premiere of Netflix's "Orange Is the New Black."
Although Equifax has not yet confirmed whether the hackers have contacted the company for any demand or not, the breach is major, and all 143 Million Americans quickly need to take action to protect themselves and their loved ones.
Here's what all you can do to Protect Yourself:
1. Enroll in TrustedID Premier
Equifax is offering a year of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection program for free for one year through TrustedID Premier that you should sign up if you are a US resident—the service is free whether or not you have been affected by the breach.
The program offers services such as Equifax credit report, 3 bureau credit file monitoring, Equifax credit report lock, Social Security number monitoring and up to $1M identity theft insurance.
However, Equifax's own identity protection service is not enough, you must follow below steps to help ensure you're doing everything to protect your identity.
2. Monitor your accounts
In upcoming days, the personal and payment cards details are likely to be sold in underground black markets, resulting in financial loss and identity theft to millions of customers.
So, users are advised to be vigilant in reviewing their bank account statements, checking for any changes in their personal information and reporting any unauthorized transactions to the respective bank.
3. Freeze Your Credit Report
Since your stolen Social Security number can be misused by hackers to open new accounts in your name or ruin your credit score, you should consider placing a credit freeze request.
Freezing your credit will make it difficult for anyone to open a new account in your name, as you (or anyone masquerading as you) will need the PIN that you got when you froze your credit to unfreeze your account.
To freeze your credit, contact these credit bureaus: Equifax: 1-800-349-9960, Experian: 1‑888‑397‑3742, and TransUnion: 1-888-909-8872.
4. Change your Passwords and Logins
Meanwhile, all customers are advised to reset their account passwords and login information on the website.
5. Watch out for tax season
It's important for you to know that identity thieves can use your stolen social security number to file fraudulent tax returns and get refunds.
So, you should consider filing your taxes early.
6. Watch Out for Scams
Users are strongly advised to be cautious if they receive any suspicious or unrecognised phone call, text message, or email from anyone saying you must pay taxes or a debt immediately—even if they provide your personal information.
7. Already Experienced Identity Theft? Here's what to do now:
If you have already a victim to the identity theft, visit the FTC Identity Theft Recovery website and fill in the form. The Federal Trade Commission will provide you with a specific identity theft report and "to-do" recovery plans.
| Data_Breaches |
Ukraine Police Warns of New NotPetya-Style Large Scale CyberAttack | https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/ukraine-notpetya-cyberattack.html | Remember NotPetya?
The Ransomware that shut down thousands of businesses, organisations and banks in Ukraine as well as different parts of Europe in June this year.
Now, Ukrainian government authorities are once again warning its citizens to brace themselves for next wave of "large-scale" NotPetya-like cyber attack.
According to a press release published Thursday by the Secret Service of Ukraine (SBU), the next major cyber attack could take place between October 13 and 17 when Ukraine celebrates Defender of Ukraine Day (in Ukrainian: День захисника України, Den' zakhysnyka Ukrayiny).
Authorities warn the cyber attack can once again be conducted through a malicious software update against state government institutions and private companies.
The attackers of the NotPetya ransomware also used the same tactic—compromising the update mechanism for Ukrainian financial software provider called MeDoc and swapping in a dodgy update including the NotPetya computer virus.
The virus then knocked computers in Ukrainian government agencies and businesses offline before spreading rapidly via corporate networks of multinational companies with operations or suppliers in eastern Europe.
Presentation by Alexander Adamov, CEO at NioGuard Security Lab
The country blamed Russia for the NotPetya attacks, while Russia denied any involvement.
Not just ransomware and wiper malware, Ukraine has previously been a victim of power grid attacks that knocked its residents out of electricity for hours on two different occasions.
The latest warning by the Ukrainian secret service told government and businesses to make sure their computers and networks were protected against any intrusion.
"SBU notifies about preparing for a new wave of large-scale attack against the state institutions and private companies. The basic aim—to violate normal operation of information systems, that may destabilize the situation in the country," the press release reads.
"The SBU experts received data that the attack can be conducted with the use of software updating, including public applied software. The mechanism of its realization will be similar to cyber-attack of June 2017."
To protect themselves against the next large-scale cyber attack, the SBU advised businesses to follow some recommendations, which includes:
Updating signatures of virus protection software on the server and in the workstation computers.
Conducting redundancy of information, which is processed on the computer equipment.
Providing daily updating of system software, including Windows operating system of all versions.
Since the supply chain attacks are not easy to detect and prevent, users are strongly advised to keep regular backups of their important files on a separate drive or storage that are only temporarily connected for worst case scenarios.
Most importantly, always keep a good antivirus on your system that can detect and block any malware intrusion before it can infect your device, and keep it up-to-date for latest infection-detection.
| Cyber_Attack |
LockerPin Ransomware Resets PIN and Permanently Locks Your SmartPhones | https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/android-lock-ransomware.html | Your device's lock screen PIN is believed to keep your phone's contents safe from others, but sadly not from a new piece of ransomware that is capable of hijacking safety of your Android devices.
A group of security researchers has uncovered what is believed to be the first real example of malware that is capable to reset the PIN code on a device and permanently lock the owner out of their own smartphone or tablet.
This Android PIN-locking ransomware, identified as Android/Lockerpin.A, changes the infected device's lock screen PIN code and leaves victims with a locked mobile screen, demanding for a $500 (€450) ransom.
Here's the Kicker:
Since the lock screen PIN is reset randomly, so even paying the ransom amount won't give you back your device access, because even the attackers don't know the changed PIN code of your device, security researchers at Bratislava-based antivirus firm ESET warn.
LockerPIN, as dubbed by the researchers, being spread through an adult entertainment apps installed from third-party websites, warez forums, and torrents – outside of the official Google Play Store.
The app in question is Porn Droid, which is the second of its kind observed recently called Adult Player – another porn-themed Android app that takes selfies of its users and include them in its ransom messages.
How LockerPIN Works?
Once installed on the victim's smartphone, the app first tricks users into granting it device administrator rights. It does so by disguising itself as an "Update patch installation" window.
After gaining admin privileges, the malicious app goes on to change the user's lock screen PIN code, using a randomly generated number.
This random number is not even sent to the attacker, meaning even after victims pay the ransom; nobody can unlock the device's screen.
Though the majority of infected devices are detected within the United States, the researchers have spotted the infections worldwide.
How to Get Rid of this LockerPIN Ransomware?
Unfortunately, there is "no effective way" to regain access to infected devices without losing personal data.
Rebooting the device in Safe Mode and uninstalling the offending application or using Android Debug Bridge (ADB) alone won't solve the issue.
The only way to unlock the device and get rid of LockerPIN ransomware app is to perform a factory reset that would wipe out all the personal data and apps stored on your device.
Ransomware delivering through malicious apps are growing increasingly and becoming more sophisticated with time, and this newly discovered LockerPIN Ransomware proves the theory.
The bottom line:
To avoid falling victims to malicious apps like Porn Droid and Adult Player, the saving grace for users is:
Don't install apps outside of the Google Play Store.
Don't grant administrator privileges to apps unless you truly trust them.
| Malware |
How Some Chinese Hackers Started Making Big Money | https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/hacking-news-china.html | We know that Hackers hack for a variety of reasons:
...some hack to test their skills,
…some hack to gain recognition,
...some hack to make money,
...some hack to support their Nation-State strategy,
...and, some hack alone, and some hack in Groups.
And Chinese Hackers are the ones who are infamous for their dedication towards Hacking.
Chinese hacking groups are better known for attacking and stealing information, organized cyber crimes, theft of intellectual property and state-sponsored cyber espionage attacks.
But it seems that several Chinese hacker groups have now shifted their motive of hacking towards 'making money'.
How much Money Hackers Actually Make?
It is a known fact that hacking makes money, but how much?
Answer: At least $4,500,000/year from one malware campaign.
How? We often observe mobile and desktop applications bundled with Ad-displaying programs, called Adware, to generate revenue.
Just last week we reported about "Kemoge Android Adware," disguising itself as popular apps, is making the rounds in as many as 20 countries.
Kemoge malware, whose origin is suspected from China, can root vulnerable Android devices, which practically allows hackers to take over victim's Android device.
Once installed, the malware automatically download other Apps it gets paid to promote.
But Kemoge adware is not alone, the researchers have discovered some it's variants that belong to the same malware family.
Chinese Adware Family Threatening your Android
In a recent blog post, Security experts at Cheetah Mobile company, developers of CM Security and Antivirus apps, detailed about how Chinese hackers are making millions of profits from underground App distribution chains.
Other members of the same family are:
Ghost Push
Braintest
Guaranteed Clicks
RetroTetri
All these malware under same illegal Mobile Marketing Industry Chain follow a similar modus operandi; which is:
Repackage popular apps to injected malicious code and Ad components
Bypass Google Play Store's Bouncer Security
Exploiting existing Android vulnerabilities to gain Admin-level permissions
Root users' devices that make them unable to uninstall the virus
And then promote malicious apps through legitimate channels
"As users are completely unable to uninstall these malicious apps, the virus developers soon get a massive number of active users." Cheetah Mobile researcher said.
"With this user base, the virus developer is able to set up a marketing promotion company and become a mobile dealer. Then they have the qualifications to cooperate with ad sponsors, making money by distributing products for advertisers."
These malicious apps were found on some famous App Stores, including Google Play, Aptoide and Mobogonie.
Some Critical Findings from their Research are:
This Virus family includes 4000 Samples
The Adware is affecting Android versions from 2.3 to 5.1.
More than 10,000 phone types and 2,742 brands have been affected.
The virus has affected more than 900,000 Android users in over 116 countries, especially Southeast Asia.
More than four suspicious domain names have been identified.
Tips for keeping your Android Device Safe
Users are advised to:
never click on suspicious links from emails or websites,
be careful what you download,
don't install apps without reviewing them,
inspect each and every permission an Android app asks for,
keep your Android device updated.
Read More:
China Admits It Has Army of Hackers
China arrested Hackers at U.S. Government Request
China Using A Powerful 'Great Cannon' Weapon to Censor The Internet
China Demands Tech Companies to give them Backdoor and Encryption Keys
To grab more of what China-based hacks and attacks are capable of, Follow us and Stay Tuned.
| Malware |
DarkSide Ransomware Gang Extorted $90 Million from Several Victims in 9 Months | https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/darkside-ransomware-gang-extorted-90.html | DarkSide, the hacker group behind the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack earlier this month, received $90 million in bitcoin payments following a nine-month ransomware spree, making it one of the most profitable cybercrime groups.
"In total, just over $90 million in bitcoin ransom payments were made to DarkSide, originating from 47 distinct wallets," blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said. "According to DarkTracer, 99 organisations have been infected with the DarkSide malware - suggesting that approximately 47% of victims paid a ransom, and that the average payment was $1.9 million."
Of the total $90 million haul, the DarkSide's developer is said to have received $15.5 million in bitcoins, while the remaining $74.7 million was split among its various affiliates. FireEye's research into DarkSide's affiliate program had previously revealed that its creators take a 25% cut for payments under $500,000 and 10% for ransoms above $5 million, with the lion's share of the money going to the recruited partners.
Elliptic co-founder and chief scientist Dr. Tom Robinson said the "split of the ransom payment is very clear to see on the blockchain, with the different shares going to separate Bitcoin wallets controlled by the affiliate and developer."
What's more, an analysis of blockchain transactions uncovered the syndicate had made $17.5 million in the past three months alone, with roughly 10% of the profits coming from payouts made by chemical distribution company Brenntag (nearly $4.4 million) and Colonial Pipeline. The Georgia-headquartered firm said it paid 75 bitcoins ($4.4 million as of May 8) to restore access, CEO Joseph Blount told the Wall Street Journal.
DarkSide, which went operational in August 2020, is just one of many groups that operated as a service provider for other threat actors, or "affiliates," who used its ransomware to extort targets in exchange for a cut of the profits, but not before threatening to release the data — a tactic known as double extortion.
But in a sudden turn of events, the prolific cybercrime cartel last week announced plans to wind up its Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) affiliate program for good, claiming that its servers had been seized by law enforcement. Its bitcoin wallet was also emptied to an unknown account.
The fallout from the biggest known cyberattack on U.S. energy industry is only the latest example of how a spate of ransomware incidents are increasingly affecting the operations of critical infrastructure and emerging a national security threat. The events have also turned the spotlight on implementing necessary strategies to ensure vital functions remain operational in the event of a significant cyber disruption.
| Malware |
Security hole allows anyone to hijack your Skype account | https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/security-hole-allows-anyone-to-hijack.html | It looks like Skype has another big hole in their security. According to reports, a security hole makes Skype accounts vulnerable to hijacking. The security hole allows unauthorized users with knowledge of your Skype-connected email address to change the password on your Skype account, thus gaining control of it.
The hijack is triggered by signing up for a new Skype account using the email address of another registered user. No access to the victim's inbox is required one just simply needs to know the address. Creating an account this way generates a warning that the email address is already associated with another user, but crucially the voice-chat website does not prevent the opening of the new account.
Then hacker just have to ask for a password reset token , which Skype app will send automatically to your email, this allows a third party to redeem it and claim ownership of your original username and thus account. The issue was reportedly documented on Russian forums months ago, and appears to have been easy to exploit.
Skype appears to have pulled its password reset page, stopping this flaw in its tracks and said, "We have had reports of a new security vulnerability issue. As a precautionary step we have temporarily disabled password reset as we continue to investigate the issue further. We apologize for the inconvenience but user experience and safety is our first priority"
For quick security of your account, users should change associated e-mail address of your Skype account.
| Vulnerability |
Vulnerable Texas Transportation Site 'TxTag' leaves 1.2 Million Credit Cards at Risk | https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/vulnerable-texas-transportation-site.html | Do you know, Why another major company is getting hacked every week? Because of poor policies, Laziness to Incident Response and lack in will-power to put efforts on applying important patches.
Some companies are not taking their security more seriously, and best suitable example for this is TxTag, an electronic toll collection systems in Texas operated by Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).
1.2 MILLION CREDIT CARD ARE AT RISK
Security researcher, David Longenecker claimed a serious flaw at TxTag website that exposes the active Credit Card Details and Personal Information of 1.2 Million Drivers including active TxTags (vehicle stickers with microchips, which are scanned by electronic readers on toll roads), Names, phone numbers, full residence addresses, email addresses, along with their complete Credit card numbers and Expiration date.
According to David, the account names could be easily predictable by anyone, which is typically an 8-digit number that begins with the number 2 and protected by only a 4-digit PIN Number, that could be itself another easy x-factor to abuse.
But their stupidity didn't end here, to make the case worst for their users; TxTag.org inexplicably stores the entire credit card details including Credit Card Numbers and expiration date, which meant to be partial visible to users, but available in the plaintext as the value of input field on the page source code.
"I have no indication credit cards have actually been stolen. I merely found and reported a flaw that could very easily be exploited to obtain this information." he said.
NO LESSONS LEARNED FROM PREVIOUS CYBER ATTACK
Texas Department of Transportation had not learned any lesson from their past experiences with hackers. Exactly two years back, they themselves confirmed a "cyber attack" in which the hackers overloaded the TxTag back office accounts servers, but according to TxTag, no accounts were compromised at the time.
In the reply back in 2012, Karen Amacker, TxDOT spokesman said, "Customer service and information security are of paramount importance to TxDOT. Cyberattackers recently tried to get into TxTag.org, but were not successful. All of our customers' information, including credit card information, remains secure."
But this security and so called paramount importance is seems to be a dilemma for them as they did nothing to improve the data security of their users after facing an attack.
FLAW REPORTED, BUT YET NO RESPONSE
The Flaw has been reported by the researcher, but neither TxTag nor TxDOT have so far responded to any of his request for comment.
"The problem lies in the AutoPay Method screen. If you do not have a credit card or bank account stored for automatic payments, then financial data cannot be stolen through this manner." david said.
We should understand that no one is safe when bad hackers are out to do some damage. You are always advised to don't be lazy with your passwords, set tough-to-guess and long passwords and don't store information online that you don't absolutely need to. Stay Tuned, Stay Safe.
| Data_Breaches |
Android Clickjacking Rootkit Demonstrated | https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/android-clickjacking-rootkit.html | Android Clickjacking Rootkit Demonstrated
Mobile security researchers have identified an aspect of Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and earlier models that clickjacking rootkits could exploit. Researchers at NC State in the US have developed a proof-of-concept prototype rootkit that attacks the Android framework and could be used to steal personal information.
What is clickjacking? It is a malicious technique that tricks users and is often used to take over computers, web cams, or snag confidential info that is revealed by users who thinks they are on an innocent webpage.
Like most Android malware, the rootkit can be distributed as a malicious app, opening up a host of potential vulnerabilities on any device on which it is installed. However, it functions in a different way.
The rootkit, which could be bundled with an app and is said to be undetectable by anti-virus packages, would allow an attacker to replace a smartphone's browser with a version that logs key strokes to capture bank card data and uploads them to a hacker-controlled website.
Jiang explained in a video in which he demonstrates the rootkit in action:
In a demonstration video, the rootkit is shown manipulating the apps on a smartphone. Such a program could be used by cybercriminals to replace an app with a malicious data stealing version that appears legitimate to the user.
"This would be a more sophisticated type of attack than we've seen before," says Jiang, "But there is good news. Now that we've identified the problem, we can begin working on ways to protect against attacks like these."
| Malware |
How One Photo Could Have Hacked Your WhatsApp and Telegram Accounts | https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/hack-whatsapp-telegram-account.html | Next time when someone sends you a photo of a cute cat or a hot chick on WhatsApp or Telegram then be careful before you click on the image to view — it might hack your account within seconds.
A new security vulnerability has recently been patched by two popular end-to-end encrypted messaging services — WhatsApp and Telegram — that could have allowed hackers to completely take over user account just by having a user simply click on a picture.
The hack only affected the browser-based versions of WhatsApp and Telegram, so users relying on the mobile apps are not vulnerable to the attack.
According to Checkpoint security researchers, the vulnerability resided in the way both messaging services process images and multimedia files without verifying that they might have hidden malicious code inside.
For exploiting the flaw, all an attacker needed to do was sending the malicious code hidden within an innocent-looking image. Once the victim clicked on the picture, the attacker could have gained full access to the victim's WhatsApp or Telegram storage data.
This eventually allowed attackers to take full access to the user's account on any browser, view and manipulate chat sessions, access victim's personal and group chats, photos, videos, audios, other shared files and contact lists as well.
Millions of WhatsApp and Telegram accounts could have been hacked using just a PHOTO!
CLICK TO TWEET
To make this attack widespread, the attacker can then send the malware-laden image to everyone on the victim's contact list, which could, eventually, mean that one hijacked account could be led to countless compromises by leapfrogging accounts.
Video Demonstration
The researchers also provided a video demonstration, given below which shows the attack in action.
Here's Why This Vulnerability Went Undetected:
Both WhatsApp and Telegram use end-to-end encryption for its messages to ensure that nobody, except the sender and the receiver, can read the messages in between.
However, this same end-to-end encryption security measure was also the source of this vulnerability.
Since the messages were encrypted on the side of the sender, WhatsApp and Telegram had no idea or a way of knowing, that malicious code was being sent to the receiver, and thus were unable to prevent the content from being running.
"Since messages were encrypted without being validated first, WhatsApp and Telegram were blind to the content, thus making them unable to prevent malicious content from being sent," the researchers writes in a blog post.
WhatsApp fixed the flaw within 24 hours on Thursday, March 8, while Telegram patched the issue on Monday.
Since the fixes have been applied on the server end, users don't have to update any app to protect themselves from the attack; instead, they just need a browser restart.
"It's a big vulnerability in a significant service," said Oded Vanunu, head of product vulnerability research at Check Point. "Thankfully, WhatsApp and Telegram responded quickly and responsibly to deploy the mitigation against exploitation of this issue in all web clients."
WhatsApp did not notice any abuse of the vulnerability, while Telegram claimed the flaw was less severe than WhatsApp, as it required the victim to right click on the image content and then open it in a new window or tab for the malicious code to run and exploit its users.
After fixing this flaw, content on the web versions of both WhatsApp and Telegram will now be validated before the end-to-end encryption comes into play, allowing malicious files to be blocked.
| Vulnerability |
Cybercrime Group Asking Insiders for Help in Planting Ransomware | https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/cybercrime-group-asking-insiders-for.html | A Nigerian threat actor has been observed attempting to recruit employees by offering them to pay $1 million in bitcoins to deploy Black Kingdom ransomware on companies' networks as part of an insider threat scheme.
"The sender tells the employee that if they're able to deploy ransomware on a company computer or Windows server, then they would be paid $1 million in bitcoin, or 40% of the presumed $2.5 million ransom," Abnormal Security said in a report published Thursday. "The employee is told they can launch the ransomware physically or remotely. The sender provided two methods to contact them if the employee is interested—an Outlook email account and a Telegram username."
Black Kingdom, also known as DemonWare and DEMON, attracted attention earlier this March when threat actors were found exploiting ProxyLogon flaws impacting Microsoft Exchange Servers to infect unpatched systems with the ransomware strain.
Abnormal Security, which detected and blocked the phishing emails on August 12, responded to the solicitation attempt by creating a fictitious persona and reached out to the actor on Telegram messenger, only to have the individual inadvertently spill the attack's modus operandi, which included two links for an executable ransomware payload that the "employee" could download from WeTransfer or Mega.nz.
"The actor also instructed us to dispose of the .EXE file and delete it from the recycle bin. Based on the actor's responses, it seems clear that he 1) expects an employee to have physical access to a server, and 2) he's not very familiar with digital forensics or incident response investigations," said Crane Hassold, director of threat intelligence at Abnormal Security.
Besides taking a flexible approach to their ransom demands, the plan is believed to have been concocted by the chief executive of a Lagos-based social networking startup, with the goal of using the siphoned funds to "build my own company." In one of the conversations that took place over the course of five days, the individual even took to calling himself "the next Mark Zuckerberg."
Also of particular note is the method of using LinkedIn to collect corporate email addresses of senior-level executives, once again highlighting how business email compromise (BEC) attacks originating from Nigeria continue to evolve and expose businesses to sophisticated attacks like ransomware.
"There's always been a blurry line between cyberattacks and social engineering, and this is an example of how the two are intertwined. As people become better at recognizing and avoiding phishing, it should be no surprise to see attackers adopt new tactics to accomplish their goals," Tim Erlin, vice president of product management and strategy at Tripwire, said.
"The idea of a disgruntled insider as a cybersecurity threat isn't new. As long as organizations require employees, there will always be some insider risk. The promise of getting a share of the ransom might seem attractive, but there's almost zero guarantee that this kind of complicity will actually be rewarded, and it's highly likely that someone taking this attacker up on their offer would get caught," Erlin added.
| Malware |
e-Commerce Site Hackers Now Hiding Credit Card Stealer Inside Image Metadata | https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/image-credit-card-skimmers.html | In what's one of the most innovative hacking campaigns, cybercrime gangs are now hiding malicious code implants in the metadata of image files to covertly steal payment card information entered by visitors on the hacked websites.
"We found skimming code hidden within the metadata of an image file (a form of steganography) and surreptitiously loaded by compromised online stores," Malwarebytes researchers said last week.
"This scheme would not be complete without yet another interesting variation to exfiltrate stolen credit card data. Once again, criminals used the disguise of an image file to collect their loot."
The evolving tactic of the operation, widely known as web skimming or a Magecart attack, comes as bad actors are finding different ways to inject JavaScript scripts, including misconfigured AWS S3 data storage buckets and exploiting content security policy to transmit data to a Google Analytics account under their control.
Using Steganography to Hide Skimmer Code in EXIF
Banking on the growing trend of online shopping, these attacks typically work by inserting malicious code into a compromised site, which surreptitiously harvests and sends user-entered data to a cybercriminal's server, thus giving them access to shoppers' payment information.
In this week-old campaign, the cybersecurity firm found that the skimmer was not only discovered on an online store running the WooCommerce WordPress plugin but was contained in the EXIF (short for Exchangeable Image File Format) metadata for a suspicious domain's (cddn.site) favicon image.
Every image comes embedded with information about the image itself, such as the camera manufacturer and model, date and time the photo was taken, the location, resolution, and camera settings, among other details.
Using this EXIF data, the hackers executed a piece of JavaScript that was concealed in the "Copyright" field of the favicon image.
"As with other skimmers, this one also grabs the content of the input fields where online shoppers are entering their name, billing address, and credit card details," the researchers said.
Aside from encoding the captured information using the Base64 format and reversing the output string, the stolen data is transmitted in the form of an image file to conceal the exfiltration process.
Stating the operation might be the handiwork of Magecart Group 9, Malwarebytes added the JavaScript code for the skimmer is obfuscated using the WiseLoop PHP JS Obfuscator library.
This is not the first time Magecart groups have used images as attack vectors to compromise e-commerce websites. Back in May, several hacked websites were observed loading a malicious favicon on their checkout pages and subsequently replacing the legitimate online payment forms with a fraudulent substitute that stole user card details.
Abusing DNS Protocol to Exfiltrate Data from the Browser
But data-stealing attacks don't have to be necessarily confined to malicious skimmer code.
In a separate technique demonstrated by Jessie Li, it's possible to pilfer data from the browser by leveraging dns-prefetch, a latency-reducing method used to resolve DNS lookups on cross-origin domains before resources (e.g., files, links) are requested.
Called "browsertunnel," the open-source software consists of a server that decodes messages sent by the tool, and a client-side JavaScript library to encode and transmit the messages.
The messages themselves are arbitrary strings encoded in a subdomain of the top domain being resolved by the browser. The tool then listens for DNS queries, collecting incoming messages, and decoding them to extract the relevant data.
Put differently, 'browsertunnel' can be used to amass sensitive information as users carry out specific actions on a webpage and subsequently exfiltrate them to a server by disguising it as DNS traffic.
"DNS traffic does not appear in the browser's debugging tools, is not blocked by a page's Content Security Policy (CSP), and is often not inspected by corporate firewalls or proxies, making it an ideal medium for smuggling data in constrained scenarios," Li said.
| Cyber_Attack |
Skype Vulnerability Exposing User IP Addresses | https://thehackernews.com/2012/05/skype-vulnerability-exposing-user-ip.html | Skype Vulnerability Exposing User IP Addresses
Skype is warning users following the launch of a site devoted to harvesting user IP addresses.The Skype IP-Finder site allowed third-parties to see a user's last known IP address by simply typing in a user name.
A script has been uploaded to Github that offers these options. According to the page, it can be used to lookup IP addresses of online Skype accounts, and return both the remote and the local IP of that account on a website.
The script is for instance available on this site. Just enter the user name of a Skype user, fill out the captcha, and click the search button to initiate the lookup. You will receive the user's remote IP and port, as well as the local IP and port.
Adrian Asher, director of product Security, Skype "We are investigating reports of a new tool that captures a Skype user's last known IP address. This is an ongoing, industry-wide issue faced by all peer-to-peer software companies. We are committed to the safety and security of our customers and we are takings measures to help protect them."
The proof of concept is fairly simple. All an attacker needs to do is download a special Skype variant and alter a few registry keys to enable debug-log file creation.When adding a Skype contact, before sending the actual request, the victim's information card can be viewed. At this point, the log file records the user's IP address.
The software, posted on Pastebin, works on a patched version of Skype 5.5 and involves adding a few registry keys that allow the attacker to check the IP address of users currently online. Services like Whois will then give some other details on the city, country, internet provider and/or the internal IP-address of the target.
This particular flaw was discussed in a paper presented by an international team of researchers in November at the Internet Measurement Conference 2011 in Berlin.
There is currently no way of protecting yourself against the lookup of the IP address, other than not logging in to Skype when the software is not needed. The only other option would be the use of a virtual private network or proxy to hide the IP address from users who look it up.
| Vulnerability |
Internet Explorer zero-day exploit targets U.S. nuke researchers | https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/internet-explorer-zero-day-exploit.html | Security researchers revealed that series of "Watering Hole" has been conducted exploiting a IE8 zero-day vulnerability to target U.S. Government experts working on nuclear weapons research.
The news is not surprising but it is very concerning, the principal targets of the attacks are various groups of research such as the components of U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Energy, the news has been confirmed by principal security firms and by Microsoft corporate.
The flaw has been used in a series of "watering hole" attacks, let's remind that "Watering Hole" is a technique of attack realized compromising legitimate websites using a "drive-by" exploit. The attackers restrict their audience to a individuals interested to specific content proposed by targeted website, in this way when the victim visits the page a backdoor Trojan is installed on his computer.
The website compromised to exploit the IE8 zero-day is the Dept. of Energy's Site Exposure Matrices (SEM) website, the site provides information on "nuclear-related illnesses" linked to Dept. of Energy facilities of employees who are experiencing health problems as a result of their professional activities.
Security community supposes that behind the exploits of IE8 zero-day flaw there is a group of Chinese hackers known as "DeepPanda" that hijacked visitors to a compromised website to deploy Poison Ivy Trojan through the execution of a "drive-by download exploit".
Security firm FireEye revealed that the new IE8 zero-day exploit is able to work against Internet Explorer 8 for all versions of Windows XP and above, including Windows Server 2003, 2008 and R2.
"This particular exploit checks for OS version, and only runs on Windows XP. We are able to reproduce the code execution and confirm it's a working zero-day exploit against IE8. During our research we also found the exploit constructs a ROP chain on non-ASLRed msvcrt.dll, and we verified it could also work against IE8 on Windows 7. So we believe there should be some other exploits targeting IE8 on Windows 7." FireEye post states.
At the moment there isn't information on the information stolen but it is clear that the campaign discovered is related to a cyber espionage activity due the numerous classified documents managed by targeted departments.
Microsoft issued a security advisory on Friday announcing its investigation on the event and confirming it as a "remote code execution vulnerability.", Microsoft confirmed on Friday that the IE8 zero-day vulnerability exists in Internet Explorer 8 for all versions of Windows XP and above are affected, including Windows Server 2003, 2008 and R2.
Microsoft noted that IE6 users on Windows XP, IE7, IE9, and IE10 users on Windows 8 and Surface tablets, are not affected by the security flaw.
Other precious suggestions provided by the advisory are:
Mitigating Factors:
By default, Internet Explorer on Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2 runs in a restricted mode that is known as Enhanced Security Configuration. This mode mitigates this vulnerability.
By default, all supported versions of Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express, and Windows Mail open HTML email messages in the Restricted sites zone. The Restricted sites zone, which disables script and ActiveX controls, helps reduce the risk of an attacker being able to use this vulnerability to execute malicious code. If a user clicks a link in an email message, the user could still be vulnerable to exploitation of this vulnerability through the web-based attack scenario.
An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
In a web-based attack scenario, an attacker could host a website that contains a webpage that is used to exploit this vulnerability. In addition, compromised websites and websites that accept or host user-provided content or advertisements could contain specially crafted content that could exploit this vulnerability. In all cases, however, an attacker would have no way to force users to visit these websites. Instead, an attacker would have to convince users to visit the website, typically by getting them to click a link in an email message or Instant Messenger message that takes users to the attacker's website.
| Vulnerability |
THN Report : ACER hacked because of their own stupidity ! | https://thehackernews.com/2011/06/thn-report-acer-hacked-because-of-their.html | THN Report : ACER hacked because of their own stupidity !
Yes ! you read right , ACER hacked because of their own stupidity. Yesterday we report that Pakistan Cyber Army hacked Acer Europe Server and 40,000 Users Data, Source Codes & Server Compromised .
Today we investigate on this and try to find out that how exactly Pakistan hackers got the FTP access . Here in above image you can see the screenshot taken by us from a ASP forum of Acer-Euro. Acer ASP Support Team posted some Hot Fix Release and give FTP access to other members , so that they can download that Hot Fix. This was posted on January 11, 2008 . Pakistan hackers got this and explore the FTP and In "PB" directory they get "Country Wise Customer Data.zip" file, which include the 40000 users data managed according to country wise.
Now this Data breach is only because of ACER's own Stupidity. The link of Forum post is "https://asp.acer-euro.com/FORUM/Topic472-8-1.aspx".
| Vulnerability |
Malware Encoded Into DNA Hacks the Computer that Reads It | https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/hacking-computer-with-dna.html | Do you know — 1 Gram of DNA Can Store 1,000,000,000 Terabyte of Data for 1000+ Years?
Even in March this year, a team of researchers successfully stored digital data — an entire operating system, a movie, an Amazon gift card, a study and a computer virus — in the strands of DNA.
But what if someone stores a malicious program into the DNA, just like an infected USB storage, to hijack the computer that reads it.
A team of researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle have demonstrated the first successful DNA-based exploit of a computer system that executes the malicious code written into the synthesised DNA strands while reading it.
To carry out the hack, the researchers created biological malware and encoded it in a short stretch of DNA, which allowed them to gain "full control" of a computer that tried to process the genetic data when read by a DNA sequencing machine.
The DNA-based hack becomes possible due to lack of security in multiple DNA processing software available online, which contains insecure function calls and buffer overflow vulnerabilities.
"We analysed the security of 13 commonly used, open source programs. We selected these programs methodically, choosing ones written in C/C++," reads the research paper [PDF], titled "Computer Security, Privacy, and DNA Sequencing: Compromising Computers with Synthesized DNA, Privacy Leaks, and More."
"We found that existing biological analysis programs have a much higher frequency of insecure C runtime library function calls (e.g., strcpy). This suggests that DNA processing software has not incorporated modern software security best practices."
To create the biological malware, the researchers translated a simple computer program into a short stretch of 176 DNA letters, denoted as A, G, C, and T, each representing a binary pair (A=00, C=01, G=10, T=11).
The exploit took advantage of a basic buffer overflow attack, in which a software program executes the malicious command because it falls outside maximum length.
The command then contacted a server controlled by the team, from where the researchers took control of a computer in their laboratory they were using to analyse the DNA file.
"Our exploit did not target a program used by biologists in the field; rather it targeted one that we modified to contain a known vulnerability," the researchers said.
Although this kind of hack probably doesn't pose any threat anytime soon, the team warned that hackers could in future use fake blood or spit samples to gain access to computers, steal information, or hack medical equipments installed at forensic labs, hospitals and the DNA-based data storage centers.
The researchers will be presenting this first "DNA-based exploit of a computer system" at the next week's Usenix Security Symposium in Vancouver. For the more in-depth explanation on the DNA-based hack, you can head on to the research paper.
| Malware |
Hackers Can Steal $999,999.99 from Visa Contactless Payment Cards | https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/hackers-can-steal-99999999-from-visa.html | Security researchers from Newcastle University in the UK have found a way to steal larger amounts of money from people's pockets using just a mobile phone, due to a security glitch Visa's contactless payment cards.
Contactless payment cards use a cryptoprocessor and RFID technology to perform secure transactions without a need to insert the card in a reader, even an NFC-equipped mobile device may also be used as a payment card. But there is a specified limits country-wise.
Contactless payment cards are meant to have a limit of £20 per purchase in UK, using which shoppers can buy things by simply tapping their card on a scanner, without having to type in a PIN. But exploiting a flaw in its protocol could allow cyber criminals to manipulate the cards to transfer up to $999,999.99 in foreign currency into a scammer's account.
Researchers on Wednesday at the 21st ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, detailed the attack which rely on a "rogue POS terminal" running on a mobile device that could be pre-set to a large amount of money, a wireless transfer of up to 999,999.99 units in any currency.
"With just a mobile phone we created a POS terminal that could read a card through a wallet," Martin Emms, lead researcher of the project noted in a statement about the findings. "All the checks are carried out on the card rather than the terminal so at the point of transaction, there is nothing to raise suspicions."
"By pre-setting the amount you want to transfer, you can bump your mobile against someone's pocket or swipe your phone over a wallet left on a table and approve a transaction. In our tests, it took less than a second for the transaction to be approved."
The good news is that the research team haven't tested how Visa's system reacted to a rush of foreign currency transfers, and whether it would flag them up as a possible fraud or not.
But the experts are worried that the contactless payment cards system is insecure, and that cybercriminals would likely use the flaw to set up hundreds or thousands of fraudulent transactions in smaller amounts to evade detection.
"Our research has identified a real vulnerability in the payment protocol, which could open the door to potential fraud by criminals who are constantly looking for ways to breach the system," Emms said.
In a report on the BBC, Visa Europe said that "we have reviewed Newcastle's findings as part of our continued focus on security and beating payments fraud" and that their research "does not take into account the multiple safeguards put into place throughout the Visa system", adding that it would be "very difficult to complete this type of transaction outside of a laboratory environment."
Visa Europe also said that the company is updating its protection to require more payment card transactions to be authenticated online, making this kind of attack more difficult to carry out.
| Vulnerability |
Hacker Who Leaked Celebrities' Personal Photos Gets 8 Months in Prison | https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/photos-celebrity-hacker.html | George Garofano (left)
The fourth celebrity hacker—who was charged earlier this year with hacking into over 250 Apple iCloud accounts belonged to Jennifer Lawrence and other Hollywood celebrities—has been sentenced to eight months in prison.
Earlier this year, George Garofano, 26, of North Branford, admitted to illegally obtaining credentials of his victims' iCloud accounts using a phishing scheme, carried out from April 2013 to October 2014, in which he posed as a member of Apple's security team and tricked victims into revealing their iCloud credentials.
Using stolen credentials, Garofano then managed to steal victims' personal information, including their sensitive and intimate photographs and videos, from their iCloud accounts, and then leaked them on online forums, like 4Chan.
Among the victims were Jennifer Lawrence, Kim Kardashian, Kirsten Dunst, Kate Upton, American Olympic gold medallist Misty May Treanor and actors Alexandra Chando, Kelli Garner and Lauren O'Neil.
While prosecutors asked for a sentence of at least 10 to 16 months in prison, Garofano's lawyer requested the judge to give his client a lighter sentence of five months in prison and another five months of home confinement.
However, a federal judge at the US district court in Bridgeport on Wednesday sentenced Garofano to 8 months in prison and 3 years of supervised release after his prison term is over.
Garofano is one of the four hackers who stole and leaked celebrities' photographs in the 2014 event, which is well known as "The Fappening" or "Celebgate" scandal.
The other three Celebgate hackers had already been sentenced for their roles in the celebrity photo hack:
Edward Majerczyk, 28, was sentenced to nine months in prison after pleading guilty to felony hacking and violating Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Ryan Collins, 36, was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to the same.
Emilio Herrera, 32, pled guilty to the same but is still awaiting his sentencing.
While the US Attorney says there's no evidence that Majerczyk, Collins, or Herrera shared or posted the stolen photos online, prosecutors allege that Garofano, in some instances, also traded the stolen iCloud credentials and the victims' intimate images with other people.
Garofano, who is released on a $50,000 bond, will surrender on October 10, 2018, to serve his prison sentence.
The judge has also ordered Garofano to perform 60 hours of community service while he is on supervised release.
| Cyber_Attack |
Facebook EXE attachment Vulnerability can Compromise with Users Security | https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/facebook-exe-attachment-vulnerability.html | Facebook EXE attachment Vulnerability can Compromise with Users Security
Nathan Power from SecurityPentest has discovered new Facebook Vulnerability, that can easily attach EXE files in messages,cause possible User Credentials to be Compromised .
When using the Facebook 'Messages' tab, there is a feature to attach a file. Using this feature normally, the site won't allow a user to attach an executable file. A bug was discovered to subvert this security mechanisms. Note, you do NOT have to be friends with the user to send them a message with an attachment.
But Nathan Power Find the way to upload EXE . When uploading a file attachment to Facebook we captured the web browsers POST request being sent to the web server. Inside this POST request reads the line:
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="attachment"; filename="cmd.exe"
It was discovered the variable 'filename' was being parsed to determine if the file type is allowed or not. To subvert the security mechanisms to allow an .exe file type, we modified the POST request by appending a space to our filename variable like so:
filename="cmd.exe "
| Vulnerability |
Malware That Spreads Via Xcode Projects Now Targeting Apple's M1-based Macs | https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/malware-spreads-via-xcode-projects-now.html | A Mac malware campaign targeting Xcode developers has been retooled to add support for Apple's new M1 chips and expand its features to steal confidential information from cryptocurrency apps.
XCSSET came into the spotlight in August 2020 after it was found to spread via modified Xcode IDE projects, which, upon the building, were configured to execute the payload. The malware repackages payload modules to imitate legitimate Mac apps, which are ultimately responsible for infecting local Xcode projects and injecting the main payload to execute when the compromised project builds.
XCSSET modules come with the capabilities to steal credentials, capture screenshots, inject malicious JavaScript into websites, plunder user data from different apps, and even encrypt files for a ransom.
Then in March 2021, Kaspersky researchers uncovered XCSSET samples compiled for the new Apple M1 chips, suggesting that the malware campaign was not only ongoing but also that adversaries are actively adapting their executables and porting them to run on new Apple Silicon Macs natively.
The latest research by Trend Micro shows that XCSSET continues to abuse the development version of the Safari browser to plant JavaScript backdoors onto websites via Universal Cross-site Scripting (UXSS) attacks.
"It hosts Safari update packages in the [command-and-control] server, then downloads and installs packages for the user's OS version," Trend Micro researchers said in an analysis published on Friday. "To adapt to the newly-released Big Sur, new packages for 'Safari 14' were added."
In addition to trojanizing Safari to exfiltrate data, the malware is also known for exploiting the remote debugging mode in other browsers such as Google Chrome, Brave, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Qihoo 360 Browser, and Yandex Browser to carry out UXSS attacks.
What's more, the malware now even attempts to steal account information from multiple websites, including NNCall.net, Envato, and 163.com, and cryptocurrency trading platforms like Huobi and Binance, with abilities to replace the address in a user's cryptocurrency wallet with those under the attacker's control.
XCSSET's mode of distribution via doctored Xcode projects poses a serious threat, as affected developers who unwittingly share their work on GitHub could pass on the malware to their users in the form of the compromised Xcode projects, leading to "a supply-chain-like attack for users who rely on these repositories as dependencies in their own projects."
| Malware |
New Systemd Privilege Escalation Flaws Affect Most Linux Distributions | https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/linux-systemd-exploit.html | Security researchers have discovered three vulnerabilities in Systemd, a popular init system and service manager for most Linux operating systems, that could allow unprivileged local attackers or malicious programs to gain root access on the targeted systems.
The vulnerabilities, assigned as CVE-2018-16864, CVE-2018-16865, and CVE-2018-16866, actually resides in the "systemd-journald" service that collects information from different sources and creates event logs by logging information in the journal.
The vulnerabilities, which were discovered and reported by security researchers at Qualys, affect all systemd-based Linux distributions, including Redhat and Debian, according to the researchers.
However, some Linux distros such as SUSE Linux Enterprise 15, openSUSE Leap 15.0, and Fedora 28 and 29 are not affected, as "their userspace [code] is compiled with GCC's -fstack-clash-protection."
The first two flaws are memory corruptions issues, while the third one is an out-of-bounds read issue in systemd-journald that can leak sensitive process memory data.
Researchers have successfully created proof-of-concept exploits, which they are planning to release in the near future.
"We developed an exploit for CVE-2018-16865 and CVE-2018-16866 that obtains a local root shell in 10 minutes on i386 and 70 minutes on amd64, on average," the researchers write in an advisory published Wednesday.
CVE-2018-16864 is similar to a Stack Clash vulnerability Qualys researchers discovered in 2017 that can be exploited by malware or low privileged users to escalate their permission to root.
According to the researchers, CVE-2018-16864 existed in systemd's codebase since April 2013 (systemd v203) and became exploitable in February 2016 (systemd v230), while CVE-2018-16865 was introduced in December 2011 (systemd v38) and became exploitable in April 2013 (systemd v201), Qualys says.
However, the third vulnerability (CVE-2018-16866) was introduced in systemd's codebase in June 2015 (systemd v221), but according to the researchers, it was "inadvertently fixed in August 2018."
If you are using a vulnerable Linux system, keep tabs on the latest updates by your respective Linux distribution and install the patches as soon as they are released.
| Vulnerability |
Feds Secretly Ran a Fake Encrypted Chat App and Busted Over 800 Criminals | https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/feds-secretly-ran-fake-encrypted-chat.html | In an unprecedented sting operation, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Australian Federal Police (AFP) ran an encrypted chat service called ANoM for nearly three years to intercept 27 million messages exchanged between criminal gang members globally.
Dubbed Operation Ironside (AFP), Operation Greenlight (Europol), and Operation Trojan Shield (FBI), the long-term covert probe into transnational and serious organized crime culminated in the arrests of 224 offenders on 526 charges in Australia, with 55 luxury vehicles, eight tons of cocaine, 22 tons of cannabis and cannabis resin, 250 firearms, and more than $48 million in various currencies and cryptocurrencies seized in raids around the world.
A total of more than 800 arrests have been reported across 18 countries, including New Zealand, Germany, and Sweden. Europol called it the "biggest ever law enforcement operation against encrypted communication."
The communications allegedly involved plots to kill, orchestrate mass drug trafficking, and gun distribution, according to the AFP, which gained lawful access to these encrypted messages through using the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018.
"For almost three years, the AFP and the FBI have monitored criminals' encrypted communications over a Dedicated Encrypted Communications Platform," AFP said. "The AFP built a capability that allowed law enforcement to access, decrypt and read communications on the platform. The AFP and FBI were able to capture all the data sent between devices using the platform."
The cryptographic barriers were surmounted by inserting a master key into ANoM's encryption system that was stealthily attached to every message, thus enabling the law enforcement to execute a man-in-the-middle (MitM) scheme to decrypt and retrieve the messages as they were transmitted.
For devices located outside of the U.S., an encrypted "BCC" copy of the messages was forwarded to a server located in an unnamed third country, from where it was forwarded to a second FBI-owned server for subsequent decryption.
ANoM (aka Anøm) is said to have been intentionally created to fill the vacuum left by Phantom Secure, another encrypted phone service dismantled by the FBI in 2018, thereby allowing the agencies to eavesdrop on the conversations unbeknownst to the criminals.
In a move echoing that of Phantom Secure, criminals needed to be part of a closed network to get hold of a phone on which ANoM came preinstalled, while the devices themselves were stripped of all other functionality.
Among some of the features of the app included the ability to —
Send encrypted text and voice messages
Make secure voice calls
Share photos, videos, animated GIFs, locations, drawings, and
Send files of any type
In addition, phone owners also had the option to verify their contacts via a QR code, create distribution lists, and chat completely anonymously without even requiring a phone number, according to a listing from the now taken down anom.io website.
Operation Ironside follows similar law enforcement actions that involved infiltrating encrypted chat platform EncroChat to tap millions of encrypted messages sent by organized crime networks through the platform. Earlier this year, a coordinated exercise under the name "Operation Argus" staged major interventions against Sky ECC, leading to nearly 275 raids and the arrest of 91 suspects, besides seizing 17 tonnes of cocaine and €1.2 million.
A Trojan Horse to Trap Crime Syndicates
In controlling the encrypted chat network right from its inception in 2018, ANoM was a cleverly designed trap meant to ensnare domestic and international organized crime syndicates who had previously relied on other platforms to facilitate murders and drug smuggling.
To that end, the FBI recruited a confidential human source, who had previously sold phones from both Phantom Secure and Sky Global to criminal organizations and had "invested a substantial amount of money into the development of a new hardened encrypted device" (i.e., ANoM), to penetrate the crime networks and distribute the devices.
Besides agreeing to cooperate with law enforcement authorities for the possibility of a reduced prison sentence, the FBI paid the informant $179,508 for the services rendered as well as for living and travel expenses.
"The devices organically circulated and grew in popularity among criminals, who were confident of the legitimacy of the app because high-profile organised crime figures vouched for its integrity," the AFP said. By May 2021, the phones, which were procured from the black market, had increased to 11,800 in number, of which about 9,000 are in active use, spanning over 300 criminal syndicates operating in more than 100 countries.
The top five countries where ANoM devices are currently used are Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Australia, and Serbia, unsealed court documents show, with its user base having grown significantly in the aftermath of Sky ECC's disruption.
"After the takedown of Sky ECC in March 2021, many organised crime networks sought a quick encrypted replacement for a communication platform that would allow them to evade law enforcement detection," Europol said. "This was a deliberate and strategic aspect of OTF Greenlight / Operation Trojan Shield resulting in the migration of some of the criminal Sky ECC customer base to the FBI-managed platform ANoM."
The international coalition that participated in the joint operation consisted of Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the U.K. (including Scotland), and the U.S.
"A goal of the Trojan Shield investigation is to shake the confidence in this [hardened encrypted device] industry because the FBI is willing and able to enter this space and monitor messages," the court documents stated.
| Malware |
New SideWalk Backdoor Targets U.S.-based Computer Retail Business | https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/new-sidewalk-backdoor-targets-us-based.html | A computer retail company based in the U.S. was the target of a previously undiscovered implant called SideWalk as part of a recent campaign undertaken by a Chinese advanced persistent threat group primarily known for singling out entities in East and Southeast Asia.
Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET attributed the malware to an advanced persistent threat it tracks under the moniker SparklingGoblin, an adversary believed to be connected to the Winnti umbrella group, noting its similarities to another backdoor dubbed Crosswalk that was put to use by the same threat actor in 2019.
"SideWalk is a modular backdoor that can dynamically load additional modules sent from its C&C [command-and-control] server, makes use of Google Docs as a dead drop resolver, and Cloudflare workers as a C&C server," ESET researchers Thibaut Passilly and Mathieu Tartare said in a report published Tuesday. "It can also properly handle communication behind a proxy."
Since first emerging on the threat landscape in 2019, SparklingGoblin has been linked to several attacks aimed at Hong Kong universities using backdoors such as Spyder and ShadowPad, the latter of which has become a preferred malware of choice among multiple Chinese threat clusters in recent years.
Over the past year, the collective has hit a broad range of organizations and verticals around the world, with a particular focus on the academic institutions located in Bahrain, Canada, Georgia, India, Macao, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and the U.S. Other targeted entities include media companies, religious organizations, e-commerce platforms, computer and electronics manufacturers, and local governments.
SideWalk is characterized as an encrypted shellcode, which is deployed via a .NET loader that takes care of "reading the encrypted shellcode from disk, decrypting it and injecting it into a legitimate process using the process hollowing technique." The next phase of the infection commences with SideWalk establishing communications with the C&C server, with the malware retrieving the encrypted IP address from a Google Docs document.
"The decrypted IP address is 80.85.155[.]80. That C&C server uses a self-signed certificate for the facebookint[.]com domain. This domain has been attributed to BARIUM by Microsoft, which partially overlaps with what we define as Winnti Group. As this IP address is not the first one to be used by the malware, it is considered to be the fallback one," the researchers said.
Besides using HTTPS protocol for C&C communications, SideWalk is designed to load arbitrary plugins sent from the server, amass information about running processes, and exfiltrate the results back to the remote server.
"SideWalk is a previously undocumented backdoor used by the SparklingGoblin APT group. It was most likely produced by the same developers as those behind CROSSWALK, with which it shares many design structures and implementation details," the researchers concluded.
| Malware |
NSA will not stop spying on us, next move Quantum computer to break strongest Encryption | https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/nsa-will-not-stop-spying-on-us-next.html | Image Credit: The guardian
If I say that NSA (National Security Agency) will never stop spying on us then it won't be wrong. After the exposure of the large number of surveillance scandals including PRISM, DROPOUTJEEP, XKeyscore and many many more which are now publicly known as well as unknown, Will NSA ever stop Privacy breach?
Obviously 'NO'. That I can predict from another Snowden leak published by the Washington Post news website recently i.e. US National Security Agency (NSA) is trying to develop a futuristic super computer called 'Quantum computer' that could be capable of breaking almost every kind of encryption on the computer used to protect banks, medical, business including top-secret information held by government around the world.
The Project is specified as "Penetrating Hard Targets" in the document and is a part of $79.7 million research program. The Washington Post says that the research is being done at the University of Maryland's Laboratory for Physical Sciences.
The goal of creating a working quantum computer is to boost encryption cracking capabilities against world's strongest encryption i.e. RSA - commonly used in Web browsers for encrypted emails and secure financial transactions.
RT News reports:
The basic principle in quantum computing is "quantum superposition," or the idea that an object simultaneously exists in all states. A classic computer uses binary bits, or zeroes and ones. A quantum computer uses quantum bits, or qubits, that are simultaneously zero and one. While a classic computer must do one calculation at a time, a quantum computer can achieve a correct answer much faster and efficiently through parallel processing, with no need to run those calculations.
The progress of the NSA's Project on such computer is not known, but Snowden's documents suggested that the agency is no closer to building a quantum computer and it is difficult to attain because of the fragile nature of such computers.
His disclosures not only threatened the whole world but also surprised his own citizens who have the thing called the Constitution and in that constitution has a 'Bill of rights', one of which is the 4th amendment says:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Now when the IT World is facing massive security breaches like Target, Adobe, Linkedin, Snapchat due to the lack of good encryption practices and Malware threats like Cryptolocker - due to the strongest encryption, but the NSA is doing NOTHING to defend people against such threats.
I suppose the dedication of NSA to save the world and to developing the strongest encryptions, rather they are ruining the user' privacy and security community by targeting encryption, tapping telephones, accessing email, hacking iPhone etc. At the same time such activities by National Security Agencies are also motivating the cyber criminals to do the same.
Here you can read all NSA Stories published on 'The Hacker News' - Click Here.
| Malware |
Disgusting! Ashley Madison was Building an App – 'What's your Wife Worth?' | https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/ashley-madison-whats-your-wife-worth-app.html | We could expect Ashley Madison to cross any limits when it comes to cheating, but this is WORSE.
After all the revelations made by the Impact Team past week, this was something different from the leaked data that had names, password and other details of Ashley Madison clients.
A dump from the leaked files unfold awful strategy of Avid Life Media (ALM), Ashley Madison's parent company, to launch an app called "What's your wife worth."
As the name says it all, the app allows men to Rate each others Wives.
Know Your Wife Worth
'What's your wife worth' was discovered in a June 2013 email exchanged between Noel Biderman, ALM's chief executive and Brian Offenheim, ALM's vice president of creative and design, which said that Biderman suggested Offenheim about the probable outlook of the app.
He suggested options like "Choice should be 'post your wife' and 'bid on someone's wife'," also mentioning: "I am not sure we should be asking for real names—rather usernames."
To which Offenheim gave some feedback, by attaching a dummy of the app's sign up design, which appeared something like this:
Though Biderman liked it, somehow the app's development was not completed and the idea was dumped, as one of Biderman's colleagues referred the concept as horrible in the emails.
We are in a dilemma - whether the person referred to app's development as horrible or the idea behind the thought of developing such an app!
There were more than 197,000 emails that were leaked from Biderman's inbox by the hackers calling themselves as the Impact Team last Friday.
Besides this the hackers released personal information of more than 33 Million Ashley Madison accounts. Which led to suicides as well.
| Data_Breaches |
Routers TCP 32764 Backdoor Vulnerability Secretly Re-Activated Again | https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/router-manufacturers-secretly-added-tcp.html | At the beginning of this year, we reported about the secret backdoor 'TCP 32764' discovered in several routers including, Linksys, Netgear, Cisco and Diamond that allowed an attacker to send commands to the vulnerable routers at TCP port 32764 from a command-line shell without being authenticated as the administrator.
The Reverse-engineer from France Eloi Vanderbeken, who discovered this backdoor has found that although the flaw has been patched in the latest firmware release, but SerComm has added the same backdoor again in another way.
To verify the released patch, recently he downloaded the patched firmware version 1.1.0.55 of Netgear DGN1000 and unpacked it using binwalk tool. He found that the file 'scfgmgr' which contains the backdoor is still present there with a new option "-l", that limits it only for a local socket interprocess communication (Unix domain socket), or only for the processes running on the same device.
On further investigation via reverse engineering the binaries, he found another mysterious tool called 'ft_tool' with "-f"option that could re-activates the TCP backdoor.
In his illustrated report (shown below), he explained that 'ft_tool' actually open a raw socket, that listens incoming packages and attackers on the local network can reactivate the backdoor at TCP port 32764 by sending the following specific packets:
EtherType parameter should be equal to '0x8888'.
Payload should contains MD5 hash of the value DGN1000 (45d1bb339b07a6618b2114dbc0d7783e).
The package type should be 0x201.
So, an attacker can reactivate the TCP 32764 backdoor in order to execute the shell commands on the vulnerable SerComm routers even after installing the patched version.
Now question rises, why the routers manufacturers are adding intentional backdoors again and again?? May be the reason behind to be a helping hand for the U.S. intelligence agency NSA.
Currently there is no patch available for newly discovered backdoor. If you want to check your wireless router for this backdoor, you can download Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploit released by the researcher from here or follow the below given steps manually:
Use 'binwalk -e' to extract the file system
Search for 'ft_tool' or grep -r 'scfgmgr -f
Use IDA to confirm.
| Vulnerability |
Shadow Brokers, Who Leaked WannaCry SMB Exploit, Are Back With More 0-Days | https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/shodow-brokers-wannacry-hacking.html | The infamous hacking collective Shadow Brokers – the one who leaked the Windows SMB exploit in public that led to last weekend's WannaCrypt menace – are back, this time, to cause more damage.
In typically broken English, the Shadow Brokers published a fresh statement (with full of frustration) a few hours ago, promising to release more zero-day bugs and exploits for various desktop and mobile platforms starting from June 2017.
However, this time the Shadow Brokers leaks will not be available for everybody, as the hacking collective said:
"TheShadowBrokers is launching new monthly subscription model. Is being like [the] wine of month club. Each month peoples can be paying membership fee, then getting members only data dump each month."
To some extent, this is good news, but it is terrible news too. Good because now all these upcoming alleged unpatched vulnerabilities will be patched after being disclosed and terrible because the group will sell new zero-day exploits and hacking tools to private members with paid monthly subscription, instead of telling them to Microsoft.
Apparently, other hackers, criminal gangs, state-sponsored hackers, maybe some journalists and people from tech companies, would naturally join Shadow Brokers' membership.
Get Ready for the 'Wine of Month Club'
So, anyone buying the membership of the "wine of month club" would be able to get exclusive access to the upcoming leaks, which the Shadow Brokers claims would include:
Exploits for web browsers, routers, and smartphones.
Exploits for operating systems, including Windows 10.
Compromised data from banks and Swift providers.
Stolen network information from Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and North Korean nuclear missile programs.
The claims made by the group remain unverified at the time of writing, but since the Shadow Brokers' previously released data dump turned out to be legitimate, the group's statement should be taken seriously, at least now, when we know the EternalBlue exploit and DoublePulsar backdoor developed by the NSA and released by the Shadow Brokers last month was used by WannaCry to cause chaos worldwide.
Before publicly dumping these exploits in April, the Shadow Brokers put an auction of cyber weapons stolen from NSA's elite hacking team called Equation Group for 1 Million Bitcoin.
After failed auction, the hacking group even put up those hacking tools and exploits for direct sale on an underground site, categorizing them into a type — like "exploits," "Trojans," and "implant" — each of which ranged from 1 to 100 Bitcoins (from $780 to $78,000).
After failure from all sides, the group started leaking those hacking exploits. Last month, the Shadow Brokers released a Microsoft Windows SMB exploit that was used by the WannaCry ransomware, which infected 200,000 machines in 150 countries within just 48 hours.
While talking about the WannaCry ties with North Korean state-sponsored hacking group Lazarus Group, the group said:
"The Oracle is telling theshadowbrokers North Korea is being responsible for the global cyber attack Wanna Cry. Nukes and cyber attacks, America has to go to war, no other choices!"
Shadow Brokers Lashed out on US Government and Tech Companies
In its recent post, the Shadow Brokers criticized both the US government and tech companies, such as Microsoft, for not cracking down on the exploits when they had the chance, months before their release.
The hacking group said the US government is paying tech companies not to patch zero-days in their products, claiming that it has spies inside Microsoft among other US tech firms.
The Shadow Brokers even accused Google Project Zero team, saying:
"TheShadowBrokers is thinking Google Project Zero is having some former TheEquationGroup member. Project Zero recently releasing "Wormable Zero-Day" Microsoft patching in record time, knowing it was coming? Coincidence?"
Who knows if these accusation made by the Shadow Brokers group are true or not, but the world should be well prepared for another WannaCry-like massive destroyer.
| Vulnerability |
Pro-Tibetan activists become victim of Spear Phishing | https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/pro-tibetan-activists-become-victim-of.html | Pro-Tibetan activists become victim of Spear Phishing
Hackers are ramping up their attacks against Tibetan activists and are using increasingly sophisticated techniques to deliver malware An interesting example of such a malicious email has recently been spotted by FireEye researcher Alex Lanstein, who is currently monitoring these spam campaigns.
In the last few of months, several security vendors have reported targeted attacks that distributed malware designed to steal confidential information from people or organizations supporting the Tibetan cause. This tactic recently re-surfaced during our monitoring of Tibetan-leveraging malware campaigns. It came in the form of BKDR_RILER.SVR, a backdoor that arrives infected by PE_SALITY.AC.
A simple Spear Phishing technique was used recently to trick Tibetan activists into opening malicious PDF email attachments, by quoting a legitimate email message sent by FireEye's Lanstein to people who submitted Tibet-related malware samples to the VirusTotal online antivirus scanning service.
According to Trend Micro researcher Ivan Macalintal, by exploiting a vulnerability, the attachment - Next Generation Threats.pdf - drops a malicious JavaScript that in its turn drops a RAT that connects to a IP address located in China. There are a few hints that the people behind the attack are Chinese. The email text was recreated under a key official character set of the People's Republic of China, and in the footer of the decoy PDF file a few Chinese characters can be found.
The said backdoor communicates the following information to the IP address about IM IDs and password, List of drives and files, User account names and passwords.
The social engineering techniques used in these attacks are increasingly sophisticated and the distributed malware is capable of infecting both Windows and Mac OS X computers. On Friday, researchers from antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab reported the discovery of a new Mac OS X backdoor which they named SabPub.
Tibetan activists are on a long hit list uncovered by Trend Micro and dubbed the Luckycat campaign it uses spear-phishing to inject Windows malware, and targets military and other sensitive entities in India and Japan as well as Tibetan activists.
| Malware |
Hackers Trick Microsoft Into Signing Netfilter Driver Loaded With Rootkit Malware | https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/hackers-trick-microsoft-into-signing.html | Microsoft on Friday said it's investigating an incident wherein a driver signed by the company turned out to be a malicious Windows rootkit that was observed communicating with command-and-control (C2) servers located in China.
The driver, called "Netfilter," is said to target gaming environments, specifically in the East Asian country, with the Redmond-based firm noting that "the actor's goal is to use the driver to spoof their geo-location to cheat the system and play from anywhere."
"The malware enables them to gain an advantage in games and possibly exploit other players by compromising their accounts through common tools like keyloggers," Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) said.
It's worth pointing out that Netfilter also refers to a legitimate software package, which enables packet filtering and network address translation for Linux based systems.
Microsoft dubbed the malware "Retliften," alluding to "netfilter" but spelled backwards, adding the malicious driver can intercept network traffic, add new root certificates, set a new proxy server, and modify internet settings without a user's consent.
The rogue code signing was spotted by Karsten Hahn, a malware analyst at German cybersecurity company G Data, who shared additional details of the rootkit, including a dropper, which is used to deploy and install Netfilter on the system.
Upon successful installation, the driver was found to establish connection with a C2 server to retrieve configuration information, which offered a number of functionalities such as IP redirection, among other capabilities to receive a root certificate and even self-update the malware.
The oldest sample of Netfilter detected on VirusTotal dates back to March 17, 2021, Hahn said.
Microsoft noted that the actor submitted the driver for certification through the Windows Hardware Compatibility Program (WHCP), and that the drivers were built by a third-party. The company has since suspended the account and reviewed its submissions for additional signs of malware.
The Windows maker also stressed that the techniques employed in the attack occur post-exploitation, which necessitates that the adversary must have had previously gained administrative privileges so as to be able to install the driver during system startup or trick the user into doing it on their behalf.
Additionally, Microsoft said it intends to refine its partner access policies as well as its validation and signing process to enhance protections further.
"The security landscape continues to rapidly evolve as threat actors find new and innovative methods to gain access to environments across a wide range of vectors," MSRC said, once again highlighting how the trust associated with signed drivers can be exploited by threat actors to facilitate large-scale software supply chain attacks.
| Malware |
CVE-2014-4877: Wget FTP Symlink Attack Vulnerability | https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/cve-2014-4877-wget-ftp-symlink-attack.html | The open-source Wget application which is most widely used on Linux and Unix systems for retrieving files from the web has found vulnerable to a critical flaw.
GNU Wget is a command-line utility designed to retrieve files from the Web using HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP, the most widely used Internet protocols. Wget can be easily installed on any Unix-like system and has been ported to many environments, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, OpenVMS, MorphOS and AmigaOS.
When a recursive directory fetch over FTP server as the target, it would let an attacker "create arbitrary files, directories or symbolic links" due to a symlink flaw.
IMPACT OF SYMLINK ATTACK
"It was found that wget was susceptible to a symlink attack which could create arbitrary files, directories or symbolic links and set their permissions when retrieving a directory recursively through FTP," developer Vasyl Kaigorodov wrote in a Red Hat Bugzilla comment.
A remote unauthenticated malicious FTP server connected to the victim via wget would allow attackers to do anything they wanted. Wget could download and create or overwrite existing files within the context of the user running wget.
The vulnerability was first reported to the GNU Wget project by HD Moore, chief research officer at Rapid7. and is publicly identified as CVE-2014-4877. The flaw is considered critical since wget is present on nearly every Linux server in the world, and is installable (although not by default) on OS X machines as well, so needs a patch as soon as possible.
PATCH AVAILABLE
"This flaw can lead to remote code execution through system-level vectors such as cron and user-level vectors such as bash profile files and SSH authorized_keys," Moore wrote.
The vulnerability has now been fixed by the Wget project in wget 1.16, which blocks the default setting that allowed the setting of local symlinks.
"Upgrade to wget version 1.16 or a package that has backported the CVE-2014-4877 patch," Moore said.
WORKAROUND AVAILABLE EXPLOIT
"This issue can be mitigated by ensuring that all invocations of wget in the mirror mode also specify --retr-symlinks command line option," wrote Tomas Hoger on the Bugzilla report. "Doing so is equivalent to applying the upstream commit linked in comment 14, which changes the default for the retr-symlinks options from off/no to on/yes, preventing creation of symbolic links locally."
"In addition to changing arguments in all scripts or programs that invoke wget, it is possible to enabled[sic] retr-symlinks option via wget configuration file - either global /etc/wgetrc, or user specific ~/.wgetrc - by adding the line: retr-symlinks=on"
An exploit for the vulnerability is now available on the open-source Metasploit penetration testing Website, so that security researchers could test the bug. You can download the exploit from here.
| Vulnerability |
First Ever Windows Malware that can hack your Android Mobile | https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/first-ever-windows-malware-that-can_23.html | Hey Android users! I am quite sure that you must be syncing your Smartphone with your PCs for transferring files and generating backup of your device.
If your system is running a windows operating system, then it's a bad news for you. Researchers have discovered a new piece of windows malware that attempts to install mobile banking malware on Android devices while syncing.
Last year in the month of February, Kaspersky Lab revealed an Android malware that could infect your computer when connected to Smartphone or tablets.
Recently, Researchers at Symantec antivirus firm discovered another interesting windows malware called 'Trojan.Droidpak', that drops a malicious DLL in the computer system and then downloads a configuration file from the following remote server:
https://xia2.dy[REMOVED]s-web.com/iconfig.txt
The Windows Trojan then parses this configuration file and download a malicious APK (an Android application) from the following location on the infected computer.
%Windir%\CrainingApkConfig\AV-cdk.apk
To communicate with the mobile device a command line tool Android Debug Bridge (ADB) is required, that allows the malware to execute commands on Android devices connected to the infected computer. ADB is a legitimate tool and part of the official Android software development kit (SDK).
In the next step, the trojan downloads all the necessary tools including Android Debug Bridge and the moment you connect an android device having USB debugging Mode enabled, it initiates the installation process and repeats it until it ensure that the connected device has been infected and install an app that will appear as a fake Google App Store.
Such Windows Malware is first of its own kind, since attackers prefer to use the social engineering techniques to spread their fake malicious apps hosted on third-party app stores. The installed malware dubbed as "Android.Fakebank.B", able to intercept victim's SMS messages and then send them to the attacker's server located at:
https://www.slmoney.co.kr[REMOVED]
Anyway Relax, if you are not a Korean citizen, because the malicious APK actually looks for certain Korean online banking applications on the compromised device.
If you want to protect your Mobile and system from such Malware attack, Please consider a few points while connecting to a windows based computer:
Turn off USB debugging on your Android device, when you are not using it
Avoid connecting your droid with public computers
Only Install reputable security software
Keep your System, Softwares and Antivirus up-to-date.
Stay Safe!
| Malware |
Rule 41 — FBI Gets Expanded Power to Hack any Computer in the World | https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/fbi-rule-41-hacking.html | Hacking multiple computers across the world just got easier for the United States intelligence and law enforcement agencies from today onwards.
The changes introduced to the Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure by the United States Department of Justice came into effect on Thursday, after an effort to block the changes failed on Wednesday.
The change grants the FBI much greater powers to hack into multiple computers within the country, and perhaps anywhere in the world, with just a single warrant authorized by any US judge (even magistrate judges). Usually, magistrate judges only issue warrants for cases within their jurisdiction.
That's the same the FBI did in its 2015 investigation into child pornography site Playpen, in which the agency hacked into some 8,700 computers across 120 different countries.
The Supreme Court approved the changes to Rule 41 in April, allowing any U.S. judge to issue search warrants that give the FBI and law enforcement agencies authority to remotely hack computers in any jurisdiction, or even outside the United States.
Democratic Senator Ron Wyden attempted three times to block changes to Rule 41 that potentially risks people using Tor, a VPN, or some other anonymizing software to hide their whereabouts, but the efforts were blocked by Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas.
The rule change should take effect on 1st December, today, barring surprises.
On the one hand, privacy advocates and legal experts have described the rule change as the extensive expansion of extraterritorial surveillance power that will allow agencies like the FBI to carry out international hacking operations with a lot less of a hassle.
On the other hand, the DOJ argued that the changes to the rule will help investigate modern internet criminals, allowing investigators access computers whose locations are "concealed through technological means," like the Tor anonymity network or VPNs (Virtual Private Networks), and devices used in botnets that have become powerful cyber weapons.
Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell highlighted these concerns in a blog post published last week, saying if a criminal suspect is using Tor or VPN to hide its real location, it becomes tough for investigators to know his/her current location.
"So in those cases, the Rules do not clearly identify which court the investigators should bring their warrant application to," Caldwell said.
But what would happen if the FBI hacks the botnet victims, rather than the perpetrators? Or what if the government abuses this power to target nation states?
In a speech, Wyden said that the changes to Rule 41 amounted to "one of the biggest mistakes in surveillance policy in years," giving federal investigators "unprecedented authority to hack into Americans' personal phones, computers, and other devices," Reuters reports.
Other critics worry that the changes to Rule 41 would give the FBI unfettered ability to hack innocent users whose electronic devices have been infected with botnet malware without their knowledge, or anyone who keeps their identities private online.
To this concern, Caldwell argued that investigators accessing the devices of botnet victims "would, typically, be done only to investigate the extent of the botnet," or in order to "obtain information necessary to liberate victims' computers from the botnet."
Caldwell further argued that the rule change would not allow the FBI to conduct "Mass Hacking;" in fact, failing to implement the rule change "would make it more difficult for law enforcement to combat mass hacking by actual criminals."
| Malware |
Secure Messaging App 'Confide' Used by White House Staffers Found Vulnerable | https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/confide-secure-messenger.html | The secure messaging app used by staffers in the White House and on Capitol Hill is not as secure as the company claims.
Confide, the secure messaging app reportedly employed by President Donald Trump's aides to speak to each other in secret, promises "military-grade end-to-end encryption" to its users and claims that nobody can intercept and read chats that disappear after they are read.
However, two separate research have raised a red flag about the claims made by the company.
Security researchers at Seattle-based IOActive discovered multiple critical vulnerabilities in Confide after a recent audit of the version 1.4.2 of the app for Windows, Mac OS X, and Android.
Confide Flaws Allow Altering of Secret Messages
The critical flaws allowed attackers to:
Impersonate friendly contacts by hijacking an account session or guessing a password, as the app failed to prevent brute-force attacks on account passwords.
Spy on contact details of Confide users, including real names, email addresses, and phone numbers.
Intercept a conversation and decrypt messages. Since the app's notification system didn't require any valid SSL server certificate to communicate, a man-in-the-middle attacker can potentially grab messages intended for a legitimate recipient.
Alter the contents of a message or attachment in transit without first decrypting it.
Send malformed messages that can crash, slow, or otherwise disrupt the application.
Exploiting the weaknesses allowed the researchers to gain access to more than 7,000 account records created over the span of two days (between February 22 and 24), out of a database containing between 800,000 and 1 Million records.
Flaw Exposed Details of a Trump Associate and Several DHS Employees
Out of just that 2-day sample, the researchers were even able to find a Donald Trump associate and several employees from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who downloaded the Confide app.
IOActive researchers Mike Davis, Ryan O'Horo, and Nick Achatz responsibly disclosed a total 11 separate issues in Confide to the app's developers, who responded immediately by patching the app.
In addition to this, researchers from Quarkslab also showed off Confide exploits Wednesday after analyzing the app's code.
The researchers discovered a series of design vulnerabilities in the Confide for iOS app, which could allow the company to read user messages, adding that the app didn't notify users when encryption keys were changed.
Even, The Company Can Read Your Messages
According to the researchers, "Confide server can read your messages by performing a man-in-the-middle attack," and other security features of the app, such as message deletion and screenshot prevention, can also be defeated.
"The end-to-end encryption used in Confide is far from reaching state of the art," the researchers said. "Building a secure instant messaging app is not easy, but when claiming it, some strong mechanisms should really be enforced since the beginning."
Quarkslab researchers said the company server could generate its own key pair, meaning that the company has the ability to transmit the public key to a client when requesting the public key of a recipient.
"This client then unknowingly encrypts a message that can be decrypted by the server," the researchers added. "Finally, when the server sends the message to the recipient, it is able to re-encrypt the message with its own key for the actual recipient."
In response to Quarkslab's findings, Confide co-founder and president Jon Brod said:
"The researchers intentionally undermined the security of their own system to bypass several layers of Confide's protection, including application signatures, code obfuscation, and certificate pinning. The attack that they claim to be demonstrating does not apply to legitimate users of Confide, who are benefiting from multiple security protections that we have put in place. Undermining your own security or taking complete control of a device makes the entire device vulnerable, not just the Confide app."
Confide has rolled out an updated version of its app which includes fixes for the critical issues, and assured its customers that there wasn't any incident of these flaws being exploited by any other party.
Confide is one of those apps which, unlike other secure messaging apps, keeps its code private and until this time, offered little or no detail about the encryption protocols used in the app.
For more details about the vulnerabilities in Confide, you can head on to IOActive's advisory and Quarkslab's Blog.
| Vulnerability |
Vulnerability found in Apple's iOS can hide malicious code inside apps | https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/vulnerability-found-in-apples-ios-can.html | A Georgia Tech researcher has found a weakness in Apple's iOS mobile platform that could let hackers to hide malicious code inside apps and can be surreptitiously planted on the Apple App Store.
Researchers team created a proof-of-concept attack that was published in the Apple App Store and used to remotely launch attacks on a controlled batch of devices, enabling them to post unauthorized tweets, take photos and even go after other apps.
"Our research shows that despite running inside the iOS sandbox, a Jekyll-based app can successfully perform many malicious tasks, such as posting tweets, taking photos, sending email and SMS, and even attacking other apps all without the user's knowledge."
Using a BeagleBoard, team created a USB malicious charger called Mactans that can install apps without user knowledge within a minute of being plugged in.
In one demonstration, the attacker was able to hide the iPhone Facebook application and install a malicious copy in its place. The malware executed its task, then launched the legitimate hidden copy of Facebook, leaving the user none the wiser.
Soon after the researchers reported the bug to Apple and they are fixing that flaw in iOS 7, that notifies users when they plug their mobile device into any peripheral that attempts to establish a data connection, and is working on ways to address the weaknesses revealed through Jekyll.
| Malware |
Patched WinRAR Bug Still Under Active Attack—Thanks to No Auto-Updates | https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/winrar-hacking-malware.html | Various cyber criminal groups and individual hackers are still exploiting a recently patched critical code execution vulnerability in WinRAR, a popular Windows file compression application with 500 million users worldwide.
Why? Because the WinRAR software doesn't have an auto-update feature, which, unfortunately, leaves millions of its users vulnerable to cyber attacks.
The critical vulnerability (CVE-2018-20250) that was patched late last month by the WinRAR team with the release of WinRAR version 5.70 beta 1 impacts all prior versions of WinRAR released over the past 19 years.
For those unaware, the vulnerability is "Absolute Path Traversal" bug that resides in the old third-party library UNACEV2.DLL of WinRAR and allows attackers to extract a compressed executable file from the ACE archive to one of the Windows Startup folders, where the malicious file would automatically run on the next reboot.
Therefore, to successfully exploit this vulnerability and take full control over the targeted computers, all an attacker needs to do is just convincing users into opening a maliciously-crafted compressed archive file using WinRAR.
Immediately after the details and proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code went public, malicious attackers started exploiting the vulnerability in a malspam email campaign to install malware on users' computers running the vulnerable version of the software.
Now, security researchers from McAfee reported that they identified more than "100 unique exploits and counting" in the first week since the vulnerability was publicly disclosed, with most of the initial targets residing in the United States.
One recent campaign spotted by the researchers piggybacks on a bootlegged copy of an Ariana Grande's hit album, which is currently being detected as malware by only 11 security products, whereas 53 antivirus products fail to alert their users at the time of writing.
The malicious RAR file (Ariana_Grande-thank_u,_next(2019)_[320].rar) detected by McAfee extracts a list of harmless MP3 files to the victim's download folder but also drops a malicious EXE file to the startup folder, which has been designed to infect the targeted computer with malware.
"When a vulnerable version of WinRAR is used to extract the contents of this archive, a malicious payload is created in the Startup folder behind the scenes," the researchers explain.
"User Access Control (UAC) is bypassed, so no alert is displayed to the user. The next time the system restarts, the malware is run."
Unfortunately, such campaigns are still ongoing, and the best way to protect yourself from such attacks is to update your system by installing the latest version of the WinRAR software as soon as possible and avoid opening files received from unknown sources.
| Vulnerability |
uTorrent & BitTorrent Sites Hacked, Spread Security Shield Malware | https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/utorrent-bittorrent-sites-hacked-spread.html | uTorrent & BitTorrent Sites Hacked, Spread Security Shield Malware
Attackers hijacked two popular Torrent websites "bittorrent.com and utorrent.com" and tampered with their download mechanisms, causing visitors trying to obtain file-sharing software to instead receive malware. The site reported on its blog that the attack had occurred at around 04:20 Pacific Daylight Time (11:20 GMT) on Tuesday. Initially, the incursion was also thought to have affected the servers of the main BitTorrent site, but further investigation revealed this site had been unaffected by the attack.
Once installed, Security Shield delivers false reports that a computer is infected with multiple pieces of malware and prompts the user for payment before claiming to disinfect the machine. The attack affected only users who downloaded and installed software from bittorrent.com and utorrent.com during the hour-and-fifty-minute window that the sites were compromised. Those who installed software previously are unaffected.
"We have completed preliminary testing of the malware. Upon installation, a program called 'Security Shield" launches and pops up warnings that a virus has been detected. It then prompts a user for payment to remove the virus. " experts write on the blog.
It is very important to once more note that infected are only users who have downloaded the software between 4:20 a.m. and 6:10 a.m. Pacific time. If you have previously downloaded it - you can rest assured your software is clean.
| Malware |
Cyber attack hits Istanbul Airport passport control system | https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/Istanbul-airport-cyber-attack-virus.html | The passport control system at Istanbul Ataturk Airport International departure terminal was under cyber attack on Friday, while another airport in the Turkish largest city was also affected.
Passengers stood in lines for hours and plane departures were delayed, because cyberattack shutdown passport control systems at two facilities. Later Authorities has restored the systems.
Few local media said that the passport control system at the Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in Istanbul also broke down due to the malfunction of the Istanbul provincial security directorate's Polnet data system.
They believe that systems were infected using some malwares, But Authorities also investigating if the malware yielded user details from the infected machines or not.
No claim of responsibility or blame was attributed to the alleged cyberattack. However, this is another malware attacks been reported, targeting vital infrastructure so far. Cybersecurity has emerged as an emerging threat to national security in the digital age.
| Cyber_Attack |
Human Rights organisation website Serves Gh0st RAT Trojan | https://thehackernews.com/2012/05/human-rights-organisation-website.html | Human Rights organisation website Serves Gh0st RAT Trojan
According to the company's Security Labs blog, Amnesty International's United Kingdom website was compromised and hosting the potent Gh0st RAT Trojan earlier this week. Malicious Java code was planted on the site in a bid to push the Gh0st RAT Trojan onto vulnerable Windows machines. If successful, the attack plants malware onto machines that is capable of extracting the user's files, email, passwords and other sensitive personal information.
The vulnerability for the infection stemmed from a popular Java exploit, CVE-2012-050. Hackers exploited that hole and used it to inject the Amnesty International site's script with malicious code. The Java hole was the same used by Flashback, the much buzzed-about Mac OS X Trojan in recent months.
The exploit code used in this attack appears to have been copied from Metasploit, an open source penetration testing framework popular among security professionals, Giuliani said.
The injected web code was removed after Websense alerted Amnesty to the issue.The attack bears all the hallmarks of a series of attacks that appear to be targeting pro-Tibet organisations and sympathisers, most likely by a group connected to China.
The Gh0st Trojan has been used by suspected Chinese hackers in several advanced persistent threat (APT) style attacks, most notably the 'Nitro' attacks against energy firms in 2011. Chinese involvement in the Amnesty International attack is suspected but unproven.
Websense detected over 100 other websites infected with the same malicious code as Amnesty International's U.K. website during the same time period, Carl Leonard, senior manager of Websense Security Labs, said.
| Malware |
(Unpatched) Adobe Flash Player Zero-Day Exploit Spotted in the Wild | https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/flash-zero-day-exploit.html | Another reason to uninstall Adobe Flash Player—a new zero-day Flash Player exploit has reportedly been spotted in the wild by North Korean hackers.
South Korea's Computer Emergency Response Team (KR-CERT) issued an alert Wednesday for a new Flash Player zero-day vulnerability that's being actively exploited in the wild by North Korean hackers to target Windows users in South Korea.
Simon Choi of South Korea-based cybersecurity firm Hauri first reported the campaign on Twitter, saying the North Korean hackers have been using the Flash zero-day against South Koreans since mid-November 2017.
Although Choi did not share any malware sample or details about the vulnerability, the researcher said the attacks using the new Flash zero-day is aimed at South Korean individuals who focus on researching North Korea.
Adobe also released an advisory on Wednesday, which said the zero-day is exploiting a critical 'use-after-free' vulnerability (CVE-2018-4878) in its Flash media software that leads to remote code execution.
The critical vulnerability affects Adobe Flash Player version 28.0.0.137 and earlier versions for:
Desktop Runtime (Win/Mac/Linux)
Google Chrome (Win/Mac/Linux/Chrome OS)
Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer 11 (Win 10 & 8.1)
"Adobe is aware of a report that an exploit for CVE-2018-4878 exists in the wild, and is being used in limited, targeted attacks against Windows users," the advisory said. "These attacks leverage Office documents with embedded malicious Flash content distributed via email. Adobe will address this vulnerability in a release planned for the week of February 5."
To exploit the vulnerability, all an attacker need to do is trick victims into opening Microsoft Office documents, web pages, or spam messages that contain a maliciously crafted Adobe Flash file.
The vulnerability can be leveraged by hackers to take control of an affected computer.
Choi also posted a screenshot to show that the Flash Player zero-day exploit has been delivered via malicious Microsoft Excel files.
Adobe said in its advisory that the company has planned to address this vulnerability in a "release planned for the week of February 5," through KR-CERT advises users to disable or completely remove the buggy software.
| Vulnerability |
Friday's Massive DDoS Attack Came from Just 100,000 Hacked IoT Devices | https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/ddos-attack-mirai-iot.html | Guess how many devices participated in last Friday's massive DDoS attack against DNS provider Dyn that caused vast internet outage?
Just 100,000 devices.
I did not miss any zeros.
Dyn disclosed on Wednesday that a botnet of an estimated 100,000 internet-connected devices was hijacked to flood its systems with unwanted requests and close down the Internet for millions of users.
Dyn executive vice president Scott Hilton has issued a statement, saying all compromised devices have been infected with a notorious Mirai malware that has the ability to take over cameras, DVRs, and routers.
"We're still working on analyzing the data but the estimate at the time of this report is up to 100,000 malicious endpoints," Hilton said. "We are able to confirm that a significant volume of attack traffic originated from Mirai-based botnets."
Mirai malware scans for Internet of Things (IoT) devices that are still using their default passwords and then enslaves those devices into a botnet, which is then used to launch DDoS attacks.
A day after the attack, Dyn confirmed that a botnet of Mirai malware-infected devices had participated in its Friday's Distributed Denial of Service attacks.
However, after an initial analysis of the junk traffic, just yesterday, the company revealed that it had identified an estimated 100,000 sources of malicious DDoS traffic, all originating from IoT devices compromised by the Mirai malware.
Earlier the company believed that approximately "tens of millions" of IP addresses were responsible for the massive attack against its crucial systems, but the actual number came out to be much much less, leaving all of us wondering, as:
How did the Attack Succeed to this Massive Level?
To this, Hilton said that Domain Name System protocol itself has the ability to amplify requests from legitimate sources.
"For example, the impact of the attack generated a storm of legitimate retry activity as recursive servers attempted to refresh their caches, creating 10-20X normal traffic volume across a large number of IP addresses," Hilton said. "When DNS traffic congestion occurs, legitimate retries can further contribute to traffic volume."
"It appears the malicious attacks were sourced from at least one botnet, with the retry storm providing a false indicator of a significantly larger set of endpoints than we now know it to be."
Friday's cyber attack overwhelmed Dyn's central role in routing and managing Internet traffic, rendering hundreds of sites and services, including Twitter, GitHub, Amazon, Netflix, Pinterest, Etsy, Reddit, PayPal, and AirBnb, inaccessible to Millions of people worldwide for several hours.
Dyn did not disclose the actual size of the attack, but it has been speculated that the DDoS attack could be much bigger than the one that hit French Internet service and hosting provider OVH that peaked at 1.1 Tbps, which is the largest DDoS attack known to date.
According to the company, this attack has opened up an important debate about Internet security and volatility.
"Not only has it highlighted vulnerabilities in the security of 'Internet of Things' (IOT) devices that need to be addressed, but it has also sparked further dialogue in the Internet infrastructure community about the future of the Internet," Hilton said.
Next DDoS Attack could reach Tens Of Terabits-Per-Second
If the IoT security is not taken seriously, the future DDoS attack could reach tens of terabits-per-second, as estimated by network security firm Corero.
The DDoS threat landscape is skyrocketing and could reach tens of terabits-per-second in size, following a discovery of a new zero-day attack vector that has the ability to amplify DDoS attacks by as much as 55x, Corero warned in a blog post published Tuesday.
According to the security firm, this new attack vector uses the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), which if combined with an IoT botnet, could break records in DDoS power.
Dave Larson of Corero explains:
"LDAP is not the first, and will not be the last, protocol or service to be exploited in this fashion. Novel amplification attacks like this occur because there are so many open services on the Internet that will respond to spoofed record queries. However, a lot of these attacks could be eased by proper service provider hygiene, by correctly identifying spoofed IP addresses before these requests are admitted to the network."
You can read more on Corero's official website.
How to Protect your Smart Device from being Hacked
1. Change Default Passwords of your connected devices: If you have got any internet-connected device at home or work, change your credentials if it still uses default ones. Keep in mind; Mirai malware scans for default settings.
2. Disable Universal Plug-and-Play (UPnP): UPnP comes enabled by default in every IoT device, which creates a hole in your router's security, allowing malware to infiltrate any part of your local network.
Check for "Universal Plug and Play" features and turn them OFF.
3. Disable Remote Management through Telnet: Go into your router's settings and disable remote management protocol, specifically through Telnet, as this is a protocol used for allowing one computer to control another from a remote location. It has also been used in previous Mirai attacks.
4. Check for Software Updates and Patches: last but not the least, always keep your connected devices and routers up-to-date with the latest vendor firmware.
Check if your IoT device is vulnerable to Mirai malware
There is an online tool called Bullguard's IoT Scanner that can help you check if any IoT device over your network is vulnerable to Mirai malware.
If it detects any, contact the device's manufacturer or lookout for a solution to patch those vulnerable gaps.
The tool makes use of the vulnerability scanning service Shodan for finding unprotected computers and webcams on your home network that are exposed to the public and potentially accessible to hackers.
| Malware |
New Ransom malware infecting computers | https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/new-ransom-malware-infecting-computers.html | The Metropolitan Police have issued an urgent warning about a new ransom malware that is in circulation. Ransomware (also referred to in some cases as cryptoviruses, cryptotrojans or cryptoworms) comprises a class of malware which restricts access to the computer system that it infects, and demands a ransom paid to the creator of the malware in order for the restriction to be removed.
"The "malware" infects personal computers after users have accessed certain websites. *(It should be noted that there are several similar designs currently in circulation)"
Ransomware typically propagates like a typical computer worm, entering a system through, for example, a downloaded file or a vulnerability in a network service. The program will then run a payload which will begin to encrypt personal files on the hard drive. More sophisticated ransomware may hybrid-encrypt the victim's plaintext with a random symmetric key and a fixed public key.
The malware author is the only party that knows the needed private decryption key. Some ransomware payloads do not use encryption. In these cases, the payload is simply an application designed to effectively restrict interaction with the system, typically by overriding explorer.exe in the Windows registry as the default shell, or even modify the master boot record, not allowing the operating system to start at all until it is repaired.
We request readers to share this article with your friends on all social networks to alert them that this is a fraud and users are advised not to pay out any monies or hand out any bank details.
Police advice - "We would advise anyone who has been deceived by such a message and parted with any money to report the offence to their local police by dialling "101" or your local police. Virus/Malware infections where no money has been lost can be logged at www.actionfraud.org.uk/report_fraud."
Modern ransomware attacks were initially popular within Russia, but in recent years there have been an increasing number of ransomware attacks targeted towards other countries, such as Australia, Germany, and the United States among others.
In order to reduce the chances of being infected by this or similar malware we strongly recommend to use Some Best Antiviruses and never forget to update your software & potential vulnerabilities. Subscribe to The Hacker News Daily free Newsletter for Latest updates.
| Malware |
Binance Hacked — Hackers Stole Over $40 Million Worth Of Bitcoin | https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/binance-cryptocurrency-hacked.html | Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, confirmed today that the company lost nearly $41 million in Bitcoin in what appears to be its largest hack to date.
In a statement, Binance's CEO Changpeng Zhao said the company discovered a "large scale security breach" earlier on May 7, as a result of which hackers were able to steal roughly 7000 bitcoins, which worth 40.6 million at the time of writing.
News of the hack comes just hours after Zhao tweeted that Binance has "to perform some unscheduled server maintenance that will impact deposits and withdrawals for a couple of hours."
According to the company, malicious attackers used a variety of attack techniques, including phishing and computer viruses, to carry out the intrusion and were able to breach a single BTC hot wallet (a cryptocurrency wallet that's connected to the Internet), which contained about 2% of the company's total BTC holdings, and withdraw stolen Bitcoins in a single transaction.
What's more disturbing is that the company admitted the hackers managed to get their hands on user critical information, such as API keys, two-factor authentication codes, and potentially other information, which is required to log in to a Binance account.
Zao also warned that "hackers may still control certain user accounts and may use those to influence prices."
Fortunately, the Binance cold storage—the offline wallets where the majority of funds are kept—remain secure. Also, Internet-connected individual user wallets were not directly affected.
"All of our other wallets are secure and unharmed," the company said in a statement. "The hackers had the patience to wait, and execute well-orchestrated actions through multiple seemingly independent accounts at the most opportune time."
"The transaction is structured in a way that passed our existing security checks. It was unfortunate that we were not able to block this withdrawal before it was executed."
Binance has suspended all deposits and withdrawals on its platform for roughly one week while it thoroughly reviews the security and investigates the incident.
Binance CEO said the company last year set up an internal insurance mechanism, called Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), which will cover the entire amount of the hack and won't impact users.
"To protect the future interests of all users, Binance will create a Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU)," Zhao said. "Starting from 2018/07/14, we will allocate 10% of all trading fees received into SAFU to offer protection to our users and their funds in extreme cases. This fund will be stored in a separate cold wallet."
Binance CEO also said he would participate in a previously scheduled Twitter Ask-Me-Anything.
| Data_Breaches |
This Malware Can Delete and Replace Your Entire Chrome Browser with a lookalike | https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/malware-chome.html | Security researchers have uncovered a new piece of Adware that replaces your entire browser with a dangerous copy of Google Chrome, in a way that you will not notice any difference while browsing.
The new adware software, dubbed "eFast Browser," works by installing and running itself in place of Google Chrome
The adware does all kinds of malicious activities that we have seen quite often over the years:
Generates pop-up, coupon, pop-under and other similar ads on your screen
Placing other advertisements into your web pages
Redirects you to malicious websites containing bogus contents
Tracking your movements on the web to help nefarious marketers send more crap your way to generating revenue
Therefore, having eFast Browser installed on your machine may lead to serious privacy issues or even identity theft.
What's Nefariously Intriguing About this Adware?
The thing that makes this Adware different from others is that instead of taking control over your browser, eFast Browser uses a deceiving method of replacing your entire browser with a malicious copy of Chrome.
In a report published Malwarebytes detailed that the nefarious software attempts to delete Chrome and itself takes its place, allowing it to hijack several file associations including HTML, JPG, PDF, and GIF, as well as URLs associations including HTTP, HTTPS, and MAILTO.
The eFast Browser is based on Google's Chromium open-source software, so the browser maintains the look and feel of Google Chrome at first glance, tricking users into believing that they are using the legitimate Chrome browser.
The malicious software program then replaces any Chrome desktop website shortcuts with its own versions, showing a striking design resemblance with window and icons from Chrome.
"The installer for eFast also deletes all the shortcuts to Google Chrome on your taskbar and desktop," wrote Malwarebytes, "most likely hoping to confuse the user with their very similar icons."
What's more?
The eFast Browser is based on Google's Chromium open-source software, so the browser maintains the look and feel of Google Chrome at first glance, tricking users into believing that they are using the legitimate Chrome browser.
The malicious computer program comes from a company calling itself Clara Labs, who developed a slew of similar browsers under titles such as BoBrowser, Unico, and Tortuga.
How does eFast Browser Install itself in the First Place?
eFast Browser is just another Potentially Unwanted Program (PUP), according to PCrisk, which tries to get itself on your PC by burrowing itself into the free software installers from dubious sources on the web.
It's easier for malicious software to replace your browser than to infect it. This is due to Chrome's security against in-browser malware that cyber criminals are now overwriting the browser completely.
It is relatively easy to avoid installing eFast Browser and, fortunately, also relatively easy to uninstall if you have found it on your computer. You can follow the removal instructions detailed by PCRisk.
| Malware |
Yahoo Admits 1 Billion Accounts Compromised in Newly Discovered Data Breach | https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/yahoo-data-breach-billion.html | In what believe to be the largest data breach in history, Yahoo is reporting a massive data breach that disclosed personal details associated with more than 1 Billion user accounts in August 2013.
…And it's separate from the one disclosed by Yahoo! in September, in which hackers compromised as many as 500 Million user accounts in late 2014.
What's troubling is that the company has not been able to discovered how "an unauthorized third party" were able to steal the data associated with more than one Billion users.
The data breach officially disclosed on Wednesday actually occurred in 2013 and, just like the one in 2014, allowed the cyber crooks to obtain personal information of its users but not credit card details.
Here's what Yahoo's chief information security officer Bob Lord says the hackers obtained:
"The stolen user account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (using MD5) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers."
The hashed passwords used an aging algorithm called MD5 that can easily be cracked. Moreover, in some incidents, the hack revealed unencrypted security questions and answers that would provide quick access to users accounts.
The public disclosure of this latest data breach came upon "further analysis" of data that law enforcement provided Yahoo in November.
Change your Password and Security Q&A Immediately
Of course, if you are one of those potentially affected users, you are strongly recommended to change your passwords and invalidate affected security questions.
Also, if you are using the same password and answers for security questions somewhere else, change them too.
Yahoo has started notifying the account holders affected by the massive data breach, requiring them to change their passwords immediately.
Both the data breaches at Yahoo! came after the company negotiated a deal to sell its core internet business to Verizon Communication Inc for $4.8 Billion.
The September disclosure of half a billion users' breach prompted Verizon to say in October that it might withdraw from the agreement to buy Yahoo.
Here's the statement from Verizon spokesman Bob Verettoni about the recent largest data breach:
"As we've said all along, we will evaluate the situation as Yahoo continues its investigation. We will review the impact of this new development before reaching any final conclusions."
Previous data breach news had already magnified company's problems, and now when another data breach affecting a Billion users has been disclosed, would Yahoo be able to save its acquisition deal?
| Data_Breaches |
Microsoft becomes latest victim of Cyber attack | https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/microsoft-becomes-latest-victim-of.html | Microsoft has become the latest victim of to Cyber attack and confirm that small number of its computers, including some in its Mac software business unit, were infected with malware.
Microsoft added, malicious software used in a cyber attack is very similar to those experienced by Facebook and Apple recently. Microsoft gave few other details about the break-in, "We have no evidence of customer data being affected and our investigation is ongoing."
"During our investigation, we found a small number of computers, including some in our Mac business unit that were infected by malicious software using techniques similar to those documented by other organizations. We have no evidence of customer data being affected and our investigation is ongoing," Microsoft said.
"This type of cyber attack is no surprise to Microsoft and other companies that must grapple with determined and persistent adversaries," the company said.
Last week, Apple said its computers were attacked by the same hackers who targeted Facebook a week earlier and Facebook said it had traced a cyber attack back to China which had infiltrated employees' laptops.
| Cyber_Attack |
Plugx RAT targeting government organizations in Japan using spear phishing | https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/plugx-rat-targeting-government.html | Roland Dela Paz (Threat Researcher) at TrendMirco reported that last year a Malware Campaign to target specific users in Japan, China, and Taiwan once again on rise using new breed of Remote Access Tool (RAT) called Plugx (also known as Korplug). This new custom made version comes for less recognition and more elusiveness from security researchers.
He also mention that last year campaign used the Poison Ivy RAT, but now its Plugx take its place. "Similar to previous Poison Ivy campaigns, it also arrives as an attachment to spear-phished emails either as an archived, bundled file or specially crafted document that exploits a vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat Reader or Microsoft Office. We've also encountered an instance of Plugx aimed at a South Korean Internet company and a U.S. engineering firm." Roland mentioned.
The attached pdf exploits CVE-2010-2883 (with Plugx (RAT) payload connects to a command and control (C&C) server named {BLOCKED}eo.flower-show.org.
CVE-2010-2883: Stack-based buffer overflow in CoolType.dll in Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x before 9.4, and 8.x before 8.2.5 on Windows and Mac OS X, allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (application crash) via a PDF document with a long field in a Smart INdependent Glyphlets (SING) table in a TTF font, as exploited in the wild in September 2010)
This C&C server appeared to be have been used by Poison Ivy and PlugX variants. According to Roland this rat drop a file at %System Root%\Documents and Settings\All Users\SxS\bug.log which contain it own errors and then possibly it uploads back to attacker server for Auditing. This shows that , this variant is still in beta stage. Trend Micro monitoring PlugX's development and We at THE HACKER NEWS, will update you with new info when published.
| Malware |
More Hacking Groups Found Exploiting SMB Flaw Weeks Before WannaCry | https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/eternalblue-smb-exploit.html | Since the Shadow Brokers released the zero-day software vulnerabilities and hacking tools – allegedly belonged to the NSA's elite hacking team Equation Group – several hacking groups and individual hackers have started using them in their own way.
The April's data dump was believed to be the most damaging release by the Shadow Brokers till the date, as it publicly leaked lots of Windows hacking tools, including dangerous Windows SMB exploit.
After the outbreak of WannaCry last week, security researchers have identified multiple different campaigns exploiting Windows SMB vulnerability (CVE-2017-0143), called Eternalblue, which has already compromised hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide.
I have been even confirmed by multiple sources in hacking and intelligence community that there are lots of groups and individuals who are actively exploiting Eternalblue for different motives.
Moreover, the Eternalblue SMB exploit (MS17-010) has now been ported to Metasploit, a penetration testing framework that enables researchers as well as hackers to exploit this vulnerability easily.
Cybersecurity startup Secdo, an incident response platform, has recently discovered two separate hacking campaigns using the same Eternalblue SMB exploit at least three weeks before the outbreak of WannaCry global ransomware attacks.
So, it would not be surprised to find more hacking groups, state-sponsored attackers, financially motivated organized criminal gangs and gray hat hackers exploiting Eternalblue to target large organizations and individuals.
The two newly discovered hacking campaigns, one traced back to Russia and another to China, are much more advanced than WannaCry, as sophisticated hackers are leveraging Eternalblue to install backdoors, Botnet malware and exfiltrate user credentials.
According to Secdo, these attacks might pose a much bigger risk than WannaCry, because even if companies block WannaCry and patch the SMB Windows flaw, "a backdoor may persist and compromised credentials may be used to regain access" to the affected systems.
Both campaigns are using a similar attack flow, wherein attackers initially infect the target machine with malware via different attack vectors, then uses Eternalblue to infect other devices in the same network and finally inject a stealthy thread inside legitimate applications, which is then used to achieve persistence by either deploying a backdoor or exfiltrating login credentials.
Russian Campaign: Credential-Theft Attacks
Secdo discovered that attackers are injecting a malicious thread into the 'lsass.exe' process using Eternalblue.
Once infected, the thread began downloading multiple malicious modules and then access SQLite DLL to retrieve users' saved login credentials from Mozilla's FireFox browser.
The stolen credentials are then sent to the attacker's command-and-control server via the encrypted Tor network in order to hide the real location of the C&C server.
Once sent, a ransomware variant of CRY128, which is a member of the infamous Crypton ransomware family, starts running in the memory and encrypts all the documents on the affected system.
According to Secdo, "at least 5 of the most popular Next Gen AV vendors and Anti-Malware vendors were running on the endpoints and were unable to detect and stop this attack. This is most likely due to the thread only nature of the attack."
This attack has been traced back to late April, that's three weeks prior to the WannaCry outbreak. The attack originates from Russia-based IP address (77.72.84.11), but that doesn't mean the hackers are Russian.
Chinese Campaign: Installs Rootkit and DDoS Botnet
This campaign was also seen in late April.
Using Eternalblue, a malicious thread is spawned inside of the lsass.exe process, similar to the above-mentioned credential theft attack.
But only instead of remaining purely in-memory, the initial payload then connects back to a Chinese command-and-control server on port 998 (117.21.191.69) and downloads a known rootkit backdoor, which is based on 'Agony rootkit' to make persistent.
Once installed, the payload installs a Chinese Botnet malware, equipped with DDoS attack functionality, on the affected machine.
"These attacks demonstrate that many endpoints may still be compromised despite having installed the latest security patch," Secdo concluded.
"We highly recommend using a solution that has the ability to record events at the thread level in order to hunt, mitigate and assess potential damage as soon as possible."
These malicious campaigns went unnoticed for weeks because unlike WannaCry, the purpose of these attacks was different, holding affected systems for a long time by achieving persistent and stealing credentials to regain access.
The recent example is of "Adylkuzz," a recently-discovered stealthy cryptocurrency-mining malware that was also using Windows SMB vulnerability at least two weeks before the outbreak of WannaCry ransomware attacks.
These attacks are just the beginning, as attacks like WannaCry have not been completely stopped and given the broad impact of the NSA exploits, hackers and cyber criminals are curiously waiting for the next Shadow Brokers release, which promised to leak more zero-days and exploits from next month.
Since the attackers are currently waiting for new zero-days to exploit, there is very little users can do to protect themselves from the upcoming cyber attacks.
You can follow some basic security tips that I have mentioned in my previous article about how to disable SMB and prevent your devices from getting hacked.
| Malware |
Faulty Patch for Oracle WebLogic Flaw Opens Updated Servers to Hackers Again | https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/oracle-weblogic-rce-exploit.html | Earlier this month, Oracle patched a highly critical Java deserialization remote code execution vulnerability in its WebLogic Server component of Fusion Middleware that could allow attackers to easily gain complete control of a vulnerable server.
However, a security researcher, who operates through the Twitter handle @pyn3rd and claims to be part of the Alibaba security team, has now found a way using which attackers can bypass the security patch and exploit the WebLogic vulnerability once again.
WebLogic Server acts as a middle layer between the front end user interface and the backend database of a multi-tier enterprise application. It provides a complete set of services for all components and handles details of the application behavior automatically.
Initially discovered in November last year by Liao Xinxi of NSFOCUS security team, the Oracle WebLogic Server flaw (CVE-2018-2628) can be exploited with network access over TCP port 7001.
If exploited successfully, the flaw could allow a remote attacker to completely take over a vulnerable Oracle WebLogic Server. The vulnerability affects versions 10.3.6.0, 12.1.3.0, 12.2.1.2 and 12.2.1.3.
Since a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for the original Oracle WebLogic Server vulnerability has already been made public on Github and someone has just bypassed the patch as well, your up-to-date services are again at risk of being hacked.
Although @pyn3rd has only released a short GIF (video) as a proof-of-concept (PoC) instead of releasing full bypass code or any technical details, it would hardly take a few hours or days for skilled hackers to figure out a way to achieve same.
Currently, it is unclear when Oracle would release a new security update to address this issue that has re-opened CVE-2018-2628 flaw.
In order to be at least one-step safer, it is still advisable to install April patch update released by Oracle, if you haven't yet because attackers have already started scanning the Internet for vulnerable WebLogic servers.
| Cyber_Attack |
The Hacker News Hacking Awards : Best of Year 2011 | https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/hacker-news-hacking-awards-best-of-year.html | The Hacker News Hacking Awards : Best of Year 2011
2011 has been labeled the "Year of the Hack" or "Epic #Fail 2011". Hacking has become much easier over the years, which is why 2011 had a lot of hacking for good and for bad. Hackers are coming up with tools as well as finding new methods for hacking faster then companies can increase their security. Every year there are always forward advancements in the tools and programs that can be used by the hackers.
At the end of year 2011 we decided to give "The Hacker News Awards 2011". The Hacker News Awards will be an annual awards ceremony celebrating the achievements and failures of security researchers and the Hacking community. The THN Award is judged by a panel of respected security researchers and Editors at The Hacker News.
Year 2011 came to an end following Operation Payback and Antisec, which targeted companies refusing to accept payments to WikiLeak's, such as, Visa and Amazon. Those attacks were carried out by Anonymous & Lulzsec. This year corporations, international agencies, and governments are now experiencing a flood of what is called Advanced Persistent Threats. APTs refer to a group of well-funded, highly capable hackers pursuing a specific agenda, often organized by a nation or State. Sony somehow pissed off the hacking group LulzSec, which downloaded information for millions of users, while posting to Sony's system: "LulzSec was here you sexy bastards! Stupid Sony, so very stupid."
The Hacker News Awards Categories & Winners
1.) Person of the Year : Julian Paul Assange
He is, of course, the lean, tall, and pale 39-year-old Australian master hacker at the white-hot center of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks and, after revealing thousands of secret Afghan battlefield reports this week, the subject of investigation by U.S. authorities. 2011 could also be called the "Age of WikiLeaks". Assange described himself in a private conversation as "the heart and soul of this organisation, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier, and all the rest". Wikileaks celebrate its 5th Birthday on 4th October 2011, for being only 5 years old they have done a remarkable and outstanding job of serving the people. The one thing most governments in the world have left off their agenda's. Keep up the good work Wikileaks and we stand in support and behind you.
2.) Best Hacking Group of the Year 2011 : ANONYMOUS
DECK THE HALLS AND BATTON DOWN THE SECURITY SYSTEMS…..THEY AIN'T GOIN AWAY!
Anonymous hackers have gained world wide attention because of their hacktivism. Anonymous is not an organization. Anonymous has no leaders, no gurus, no ideologists. Anonymous has performed many operations like Attack on HBGary Federal, 2011 Bank of America document release, Operation Sony, Operation Anti-Security and lots more. Complete Coverage on all Anonymous related news is here.
3.) Best Whitehat hacker of the Year 2011 : CHARLIE MILLER
CHARLIE SHOWS TUNA ISN'T THE ONLY THING TO PROFIT FROM!
Charlie Miller is a former hacker who has become an information security consultant now working with the Department of Defense (DOD) and helping out with cyber security. He spent five years working for the National Security Agency. Miller demonstrated his hacks publicly on products manufactured by Apple. In 2008 he won a $10,000 cash prize at the hacker conference Pwn2Own in Vancouver Canada for being the first to find a critical bug in the ultrathin MacBook Air. The next year, he won $5,000 for cracking Safari. In 2009 he also demonstrated an SMS processing vulnerability that allowed for complete compromise of the Apple iPhone and denial-of-service attacks on other phones. In 2011 he found a security hole in an iPhone's or iPad's security. Charlie Miller gets a kick of out defeating Apple's security mechanisms, using his hacking skills to break into Macbooks and iPhones.
4.) Best Leak of the year 2011 : HBGARY FEDERAL EMAILS LEAKED BY ANONYMOUS
GEE GREG, YOU THOUGHT WE JUST PLAYED WITH MATEL COMPUTERS! NOT!!!!!
HBGary Federal who was helping the federal government track down cyber activists was itself hacked by the very same activists! Gotta love these guys. Through an elegant but by the numbers social engineering effort those fun fellas at Anonymous, hacked and publicly shamed poor little HBGary Federal. Massive reputation damage and tons of turn-over in executive leadership resulted. Anonymous released 27,000 emails from the server of Greg Hoglund, chief executive of the software security firm HBGary. They posted 50,000 emails of Aaron Barr from the CEO of its sister organization, HBGary Federal. They obtained the emails by hacking into Hoglund's email.
5.) Best Defacement of the Year 2011 : DNS HIJACKING OF HIGH PROFILE SITES BY TURKGUVENLIGI
TURKGUVENLIGI……..THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING!!
Turkguvenligi also known by the name "TG Hacker' hacked some very high profile sites using DNS Hijacking. Sites included, Theregister.co.uk , Vodafone, Telegraph, Acer, National Geographic. He diverted visitors to a page declaring it was "World Hackers Day". TurkGuvenligi has claimed credit for dozens of similar defacement attacks since late 2008.
6.) Craziest Hack of the year: INMOTION HOSTING (Over 700,000 Websites Hacked)
BEWARE OF TIGER'S IN MOTION…….COMING TO YOUR WEBSITE SOON!
InMotion's data center got hit by the hacker that calls himself TiGER-M@TE, leaving a few hundred thousand website owners with nonfunctional pages and 700,000 web Pages defaced . He is also the one responsible for the attack carried out on Google Bangladesh. In our humble opinion, this is the craziest hack of the year.
7.) Malware of Year 2011 : DuQu
ALAH CAN'T HELP IRAN…….NOT WITH DuQu ON THE LOOSE!
This year was really hot on malware discovery and analysis. DuQu became the first known network modular rootkit. DuQu has flexibility for hackers to help remove and add new features quickly and without special effort. Some experts have doubts on relation between the Stuxnet and DuQu creators as they both aim for stealing and collecting data related to Iranian agencies activities.
8.) Best Hacking Tool of the Year 2011 - ANTI (Android Network Toolkit)
HEY CYBER WORLD, STICK THIS IN YOUR TOOL BELT!
ANTI is the smallest but most powerful hacking tool developed by the company Zimperium. Anti-Android Network Toolkit is an app that uses WiFi scanning tools to scan networks. You can scan a network that you have the phone connected to or you can scan any other nearby open networks. Security admins can use Anti to test network host vulnerabilities for DoS attacks and other threats. Features : OS detection, traceroute, port connect, Wi-Fi monitor, HTTP server, man-in-the-middle threats, remote exploits, Password Cracker and DoS attack and plugins.
9.) High Profile Hacker of the Year 2011 : LULZSEC
LULZSEC KEEPS US LAUGHING ALL THROUGH 2011!
Lulz Security, commonly abbreviated as LulzSec, is a computer hacker group that claims responsibility for several high profile attacks, including the compromise of user accounts from Sony Pictures in 2011. The group also claimed responsibility for taking the CIA website offline. It has gained attention due to its high profile targets and the sarcastic messages it has posted in the aftermath of its attacks. The group's first recorded attack was against Fox.com's website. LulzSec does not appear to hack for financial profit. The group's claimed main motivation is to have fun by causing mayhem. They do things "for the lulz" and focus on the possible comedic and entertainment value of attacking targets.
10.) Biggest Victim of the Year 2011 : SONY
SONY SHINES AS THE BIGGEST VICTIM OF ALL!
Sony gets the Most Epic fail award so we want to give the Best Victim of the year award to Sony. Almost all Sony's websites including Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Greece, Canada, Netherlands, Europe, Russia, Portugal & Sony PlayStation Network were Hacked. Defacement of various domains of Sony and Personal information of 77 million people, including customer names, addresses, e-mail addresses, birthdays, PlayStation Network and Qriocity passwords, user names, online handles and possibly credit cards were exposed. Sony expects the hack of the PlayStation Network and cost at ¥14 billion (US$170 million) .
11.) Most Spamy Social Network : FACEBOOK
FACEBOOK OUTTA FACE IT……..IT'S A RIPE TARGET FOR 2012
Social network sites such as Facebook, Google+ or Twitter are gaining popularity. But the 'Web 2.0' presents new dangers. The wave of pornographic and violent images, Spam messages, Virus and various Worms that flooded Facebook over the past year, make it the Most Spamy Social Network of the Year. Social media is the new frontier for all of this spam. The attack tricked users into clicking on a story they thought would bring them a related video or picture. Instead, Facebook members were taken to websites that attacked their browsers with malicious software and posted violent and disturbing images to their news feeds.
12.) Most Vulnerable Mobile OS of Year 2011 : ANDROIDS
MALWARE GETS A FREE RIDE ON MOBILE DEVICES!
Mobile devices are seeing a record number of Malware attacks, with Androids leading the way as the mobile operating systems are the most likely to be targeted. Android's vulnerability to malicious content including third-party apps, SMS Trojan viruses and unexpected bugs distributed through free Wi-Fi connections has risen by 45% in 2011. This year we have seen record-breaking numbers of Malware, especially on mobile devices, where the uptake is in direct correlation to popularity.
13.) Best Hacking Book of the Year: BACKTRACK 5 WIRELESS PENETRATION TESTING
ATTENTION CLASS, VIVEK RAMACHANDRAN HAS ENTERED THE ROOM!
Vivek Ramachandran is a world renowned security researcher and evangelist, who is well known for his discovery of the Wireless Caffe Latte attack, and author of the most amazing book "BackTrack 5 Wireless Penetration Testing. This book is written completely from a practical perspective. The book wastes no time in delving into a hands-on session with wireless networking. All the way through there are lots of screengrabs, so you can see what should be happening on your screen.
14.) Most Innovative Hack : DIGITAL CERTIFICATES SPOOFING BY COMODO HACKER
COMODOHACKER BRINGS OUT THE DRAGON IN CYBER SECURITY CONCERNS
The name "Comodohacker" gets the most Innovative Hacker award from THN for the breach of the Internet's trust system arising from an outmoded method for assuring that a Web site is authentic. A breach that let a hacker spoof digital certificates for Google.com, Yahoo.com, and other Web sites is prompting browser makers to rethink security. A 21-year-old Iranian patriot took credit saying he was protesting US policy and retaliating against the US for its alleged involvement with last year's Stuxnet, which experts say was designed to target Iran's nuclear program.
15.) Biggest hack of the Year 2011 : SONY PLAYSTATION
SONY, SONY, WE PLAY YOUR LEAKS ON OUR OWN STATIONS!
The PlayStation Network is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service owned and run by Sony Computer Entertainment .On April 26, 2011 Sony Playstation announced its network and Qriocity had both been compromised by hackers between April 17 and April 19 allowing access to 70 million user accounts. Get full coverage on this News.
"TRUTH IS THE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON AGAINST INJUSTICE"
For additional information, please contact us at: [email protected]
| Malware |
#Enter_at_your_own_Risk Cyber Awareness Magazine Issue January edition Released | https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/enteratyourownrisk-cyber-awareness.html | #Enter_at_your_own_Risk Cyber Awareness Magazine Issue January edition Released
As we promised last month, The Hacker News along with Security-FAQs, SecManiac, Korben, Security-Shell, SecTechno have come together to bring you an outstanding array of internet security and hacking information. You can Download Here Special Magazine January 2012 Edition. Previous Editions available Here.
Sit back, read and enjoy :
Lee Ives from London, England talk about internet security for your children and what to watch out for and how to protect them and yourself. Security Expert, Pierluigi Paganini takes us on a visit to China and makes us wonder just how influential China's hacking is on world internet security. Read and decide for yourself.
Get political emotions warmed up reading "Anatomy of a Revolution" by our own editorial staff. Mourad Ben Lakhoua takes us on a scary journey of what new Malwares are lurking about and what to expect in the future.
Avram Marius Gabriel, who works under the pseudonym "d3v1l", gives us a look at an emerging technical society as like minded techies in Romania come together to share and learn. Get mad and take action as you read how your internet privacy and freedoms are about to be taken away in our editor Patti Galle's article on SOPA…….coming to your personal rights soon.
Manuel Dorne, administrator from Korben gives us a look at FIREFOX security tools. A must for any techie interested in "how to." And finally, a good read about politics in general in "No Turning Back" by our editorial staff.
Welcome to the January Special Edition…..let us know what you think, learn, and hope for! Connect With us on Google+ , Twitter and Facebook.
| Malware |
VK.com HACKED! 100 Million Clear Text Passwords Leaked Online | https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/vk-com-data-breach.html | Another day, another Data Breach! Now, Russia's biggest social networking site VK.com is the latest in the line of historical data breaches targeting social networking websites.
The same hacker who previously sold data dumps from MySpace, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Fling.com, is now selling more than 100 Million VK.com records for just 1 Bitcoin (approx. US$580).
The database contains information like full names (first names and last names), email addresses, plain-text passwords, location information, phone numbers and, in some cases, secondary email addresses.
Yes, plain-text passwords. According to Peace, the passwords were already in plain text when the VK.com was hacked. So, if the site still stores passwords in cleartext today, this could be a real security risk for its users.
The data breach has initially been reported by LeakedSource search engine, which received portions of the database from one of the people who bought it.
The company has already analyzed the contents of the data dump and has added it to its service. So, you can use its search engine to check if you were compromised.
Russia's Facebook VK.com is said to be the largest social networking site in Europe with more than 350 Million users. So, the hack is believed to be the biggest hack the site has ever experienced.
The validity of the credentials exposed in the hack is thought to have been stolen in late-2012 or early 2013 when VK.com had just under 190 Million users.
All the LinkedIn, MySpace, and Tumblr data breaches are also believed to have taken place during the same duration, between 2012 and 2013, when many websites were not practicing appropriate Web security policies, like hashing and salting passwords.
The hacker, named Peace (or Peace_of_mind), is selling the dataset -- which is over 17 gigabytes in size -- on The Real Deal dark web marketplace for a mere 1 Bitcoin.
According to LeakedSource, the most common password used by VK.com users was "123456," followed by "qwerty" and "123123," which are incredibly easy to predict. Also, the vast majority of email addresses came from mail.ru.
Like other data breaches, I strongly suggest you change your password immediately, especially if you use the same password for other websites.
| Data_Breaches |
Office based Trojan threat for Mac OS X by Chinese hackers | https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/office-based-trojan-threat-for-mac-os-x.html | Office based Trojan threat for Mac OS X by Chinese hackers
Security company ESET watches the newly found Trojan for OS X establish connections and receive commands to steal information. Earlier this month, researchers from AlienVault and Intego reported a new malware attack targeting Tibetan NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations).
The attack consisted of luring the victim into visiting a malicious website, which then would drop a malicious payload on the target's computer using Java vulnerability CVE-2011-3544 and execute it.
During installation on a Windows system, the payload deployed was a variant of Gh0st RAT (Remote Access Trojan). On the Mac though, a new payload, dubbed OSX/Lamadai.A, was used.
ESET observed that once the Trojan installs it will establish a connection to a hard-coded remote C&C server located in China, and will wait in "busy" loop where it attempts to maintain its connection with the server.
The server can then be used to issue commands to the infected system for uploading or downloading files, or execute scripts and commands the basics for allowing someone to remotely target a system, browse around on it, and steal information.
The command-and-control domain involved in the attack is located in China and the attack exploits a three-year-old vulnerability which no one could be bothered to fix.
| Malware |
Update Your iOS Devices Now — 3 Actively Exploited 0-Days Discovered | https://thehackernews.com/2020/11/update-your-ios-devices-now-3-actively.html | Apple on Thursday released multiple security updates to patch three zero-day vulnerabilities that were revealed as being actively exploited in the wild.
Rolled out as part of its iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS updates, the flaws reside in the FontParser component and the kernel, allowing adversaries to remotely execute arbitrary code and run malicious programs with kernel-level privileges.
The zero-days were discovered and reported to Apple by Google's Project Zero security team.
"Apple is aware of reports that an exploit for this issue exists in the wild," the iPhone maker said of the three zero-days without giving any additional details so as to allow a vast majority of users to install the updates.
The list of impacted devices includes iPhone 5s and later, iPod touch 6th and 7th generation, iPad Air, iPad mini 2 and later, and Apple Watch Series 1 and later.
The fixes are available in versions iOS 12.4.9 and 14.2, iPadOS 14.2, watchOS 5.3.9, 6.2.9, and 7.1, and as a supplemental update for macOS Catalina 10.15.7.
According to Apple's security bulletin, the flaws are:
CVE-2020-27930: A memory corruption issue in the FontParser library that allows for remote code execution when processing a maliciously crafted font.
CVE-2020-27950: A memory initialization issue that allows a malicious application to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges.
CVE-2020-27932: A type-confusion issue that makes it possible for a malicious application to disclose kernel memory.
"Targeted exploitation in the wild similar to the other recently reported 0days," said Shane Huntley, Director of Google's Threat Analysis Group. "Not related to any election targeting."
The disclosure is the latest in the string of zero-days Project Zero has reported since October 20. First came the Chrome zero-day in Freetype font rendering library (CVE-2020-15999), then a Windows zero-day (CVE-2020-17087), followed by two more in Chrome and its Android variant (CVE-2020-16009 and CVE-2020-16010).
A patch for the Windows zero-day is expected to be released on November 10 as part of this month's Patch Tuesday.
While more details are awaited on whether the zero-days were abused by the same threat actor, it's recommended that users update their devices to the latest versions to mitigate the risk associated with the flaws.
| Vulnerability |
iOS apps vulnerable to HTTP Request Hijacking attacks over WiFi | https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/ios-apps-vulnerable-to-http-request_29.html | Security researchers Adi Sharabani and Yair Amit have disclosed details about a widespread vulnerability in iOS apps, that could allow hackers to force the apps to send and receive data from the hackers' own servers rather than the legitimate ones they were coded to connect to.
Speaking about the issue at RSA Conference Europe 2013 in Amsterdam, researchers have provided details on this vulnerability, which stems from a commonly used approach to URL caching.
Demonstration shows that insecure public networks can also provide stealth access to our iOS apps to potential attackers using HTTP request hijacking methods.
The researchers put together a short video demonstrating, in which they use what is called a 301 directive to redirect the traffic flow from an app to an app maker's server to the attacker's server.
There are two limitations also, that the attacker needs to be physically near the victim for the initial poisoning to perform this attack and the flaw works only against HTTP traffic.
"A victim walks into Starbucks, connects to the Wi-Fi and uses her favorite apps," explains an example. "Everything looks and behaves as normal, however an attacker is sitting at a nearby table and performs a silent HRH attack on her apps. The next day, she wakes up at home and logs in to read the news, but she's now reading the attacker's news!"
They estimate that at least 10,000 iOS apps in the Apple App Store are vulnerable to the hack. As a result, apps that display news, stock quotes, social media content, or even some online banking details can be manipulated to display fraudulent information and intercept data sent by the end user.
Victims can uninstall apps to scrub their devices clean, and Skycure has released app code that prevents the web caching from taking place. It may be a while until developers can get this fix implemented, so connect to those public networks with extreme caution.
Swati Khandelwal - Working at 'The Hacker News'. Social Media Lover and Gadgets Girl. Speaker, Cyber Security Expert and Technical Writer.(Google+ Profile)
| Vulnerability |
Remotely Exploitable Flaw Puts Millions of Internet-Connected Devices at Risk | https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/gsoap-iot-device-hacking.html | Security researchers have discovered a critical remotely exploitable vulnerability in an open-source software development library used by major manufacturers of the Internet-of-Thing devices that eventually left millions of devices vulnerable to hacking.
The vulnerability (CVE-2017-9765), discovered by researchers at the IoT-focused security firm Senrio, resides in the software development library called gSOAP toolkit (Simple Object Access Protocol) — an advanced C/C++ auto-coding tool for developing XML Web services and XML application.
Dubbed "Devil's Ivy," the stack buffer overflow vulnerability allows a remote attacker to crash the SOAP WebServices daemon and could be exploited to execute arbitrary code on the vulnerable devices.
The Devil's Ivy vulnerability was discovered by researchers while analysing an Internet-connected security camera manufactured by Axis Communications.
"When exploited, it allows an attacker to remotely access a video feed or deny the owner access to the feed," researchers say.
"Since these cameras are meant to secure something, like a bank lobby, this could lead to collection of sensitive information or prevent a crime from being observed or recorded."
Axis confirmed the vulnerability that exists in almost all of its 250 camera models (you can find the complete list of affected camera models here) and has quickly released patched firmware updates on July 6th to address the vulnerability, prompting partners and customers to upgrade as soon as possible.
However, researchers believe that their exploit would work on internet-connected devices from other vendors as well, as the affected software is used by Canon, Siemens, Cisco, Hitachi, and many others.
Axis immediately informed Genivia, the company that maintains gSOAP, about the vulnerability and Genivia released a patch on June 21, 2017.
The company also reached out to electronics industry consortium ONVIF to ensure all of its members, including Canon, Cisco, and Siemens, those who make use of gSOAP become aware of the issue and can develop patches to fix the security hole.
Internet of Things (IoT) devices has always been the weakest link and, therefore, an easy entry for hackers to get into secured networks. So it is always advisable to keep your Internet-connected devices updated and away from the public Internet.
| Vulnerability |
Security firm Bit9 hacked, Stolen Digital Certs Used To Sign Malware | https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/security-firm-bit9-hacked-stolen.html | Bit9 disclosed Friday that hackers had stolen digital code signing certificates from its network and have utilized it to sign malware. Bit9, a company that provides software and network security services to the U.S. government and at least 30 Fortune 100 firms.
"As a result, a malicious third party was able to illegally gain temporary access to one of our digital code-signing certificates that they then used to illegitimately sign malware," Bit9 Chief Executive Patrick Morley said in a blog post.
The attackers then sent signed malware to at least three of Bit9's customers, although Bit9 isn't saying which customers were affected or to what extent.
"Since we discovered this issue, we have been working closely with all of our customers to ensure they are no longer vulnerable to malware associated with the affected certificate." and company said it has resolved the issue.
It is not the first time that hackers have breached a security firm as part of a sophisticated scheme to access data at one of their customers. EMC Corp's RSA Security division disclosed that it was breached in 2011.
| Cyber_Attack |
Apple iOS 7 Updates Silently Remove Encryption for Email Attachments | https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/ios-apple-iphone-data-protection-email-attachment.html | There is no question that Mobile devices have become a staple in everyday living around the world. But have you ever asked yourself, How Secure are the Android, iPhone or any other Smart devices? It is really important for us to think about the Security and Privacy of our Data stored in Smartphones.
In June 2010, Apple introduced 'Data protection' feature in iOS 4.0 devices that offer hardware encryption for all the data stored on the devices. "Data protection enhances the built-in hardware encryption by protecting the hardware encryption keys with your passcode. This provides an additional layer of protection for your email messages attachments, and third-party applications." Apple claimed in an old announcement.
But unexpectedly, In last few updates Apple has silently removed the email attachment encryption from data protection mechanisms. Noticed by Security Researcher - Andreas Kurtz, claims that since at least version 7.0.4 and including the current version 7.1.1, does not encrypt email attachments anymore.
"I verified this issue by restoring an iPhone 4 (GSM) device to the most recent iOS versions (7.1 and 7.1.1) and setting up an IMAP email account1, which provided me with some test emails and attachments. Afterwards, I shut down the device and accessed the file system using well-known techniques (DFU mode, custom ramdisk, SSH over usbmux). Finally, I mounted the iOS data partition and navigated to the actual email folder. Within this folder, I found all attachments accessible without any encryption/restriction" he explained in a blog post.
That means, email attachments are not encrypted on the iOS devices by a unique 256-bit crypto engine, and if someone else gets access to your device, he will be able to get access to your private content.
He also tested the encryption mechanism with iOS forensics tool called 'iPhone Data Protection' for POP or ActiveSync email accounts, and verified that iOS latest versions are not able to encrypt email attachments.
At this point, even we can't answer that why Apple removed the encryption for Email attachments, but this disclosure is definitely right now hitting my mind with more controversial questions about relationship with Apple and NSA.
Andreas Kurtz has already reported the issue to Apple Security team and they replied that Apple were aware of it. But I guess Apple has no plan to patch the issue in upcoming iOS updates, as they have not indicated anything related in email conversion with Kurtz.
| Vulnerability |
Hackers Are Targeting Facebook via spreading malware ! | https://thehackernews.com/2011/02/hackers-are-targeting-facebook-via.html | Facebook accounts are becoming favorite targets of hackers. If your account has been hacked, you could be in good company considering Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and French President Sarkozy have also been victims. Actually, thousands -- maybe millions -- of Facebook pages have been hacked. The hackers then use the accounts to send out erroneous messages to "friends."
One of your friends seems to have sent you a video or awesome photo or link, and suggests you click on it. The computer screen tells you to log in again to see the video or photo or quiz. But as soon as you sign in, you are giving your information to a hacking site, which now has your screen name and password.You probably would be suspicious of a strange e-mail in your inbox, but when you believe you are getting a link from a friend on a social network, you might not be so cautious.
You have actually been caught by one of the most common forms of hacking called "phishing." Recently estimated 1.5 million Facebook accounts are listed for sale on a website discovered by Verisign's iDefense Labs. The names were sold for as much as $45 for accounts with more than 10 friends. They are considered a way of spreading malware rather than strictly for identity theft.
People who find out that their Facebook accounts have been hacked, should immediately reset their passwords. They should also send Facebook a message, which will allow the company to look into the situation further.
| Malware |
vBulletin Releases Patch Update for New RCE and SQLi Vulnerabilities | https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/vBulletin-hacking-exploit.html | After releasing a patch for a critical zero-day remote code execution vulnerability late last month, vBulletin has recently published a new security patch update that addresses 3 more high-severity vulnerabilities in its forum software.
If left unpatched, the reported security vulnerabilities, which affect vBulletin 5.5.4 and prior versions, could eventually allow remote attackers to take complete control over targeted web servers and steal sensitive user information.
Written in PHP, vBulletin is a widely used proprietary Internet forum software package that powers over 100,000 websites on the Internet, including Fortune 500 and Alexa Top 1 million companies websites and forums.
Discovered by application security researcher Egidio Romano, the first vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-17132, is a remote code execution flaw, while the other two are SQL injection issues, both assigned a single ID as CVE-2019-17271.
vBulletin RCE and SQLi Flaws
The RCE flaw resides in the way vBulletin forum handles user requests to update avatars for their profiles, an icon or graphical representation of the user, allowing a remote attacker to inject and execute arbitrary PHP code on the target server through unsanitized parameters.
However, it should be noted that this vulnerability is not exploitable in the default installation of the vBulletin forum, rather exploitation is possible when "Save Avatars as Files" option is enabled by the website administrator.
Romano has also released a public proof-of-concept exploit for this RCE vulnerability.
The other two vulnerabilities are read in-band and time-based SQL injection issues that reside in two separate endpoints and could allow administrators with restricted privileges to read sensitive data from the database, which they otherwise may not be allowed to access.
Since these two SQL injection flaws can not be exploited by any registered user and require special permissions, vBulletin forum administrators and users need not to panic.
Security Patches Released
Romano responsibly reported all the vulnerabilities to the vBulletin project maintainers just last week on September 30, and the team acknowledged his findings and released the following security patch updates that address the reported flaws.
vBulletin 5.5.4 Patch Level 2
vBulletin 5.5.3 Patch Level 2
vBulletin 5.5.2 Patch Level 2
Administrators are highly recommended to apply the security patch before hackers started exploiting the vulnerabilities to target their forum users—just like someone did last week to steal login information of nearly 245,000 Comodo Forums users after the company failed to apply available patches on time.
| Vulnerability |
Warning — Bitcoin Users Could Be Targeted by State-Sponsored Hackers | https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/bitcoin-software-hack.html | Another day, another bad news for Bitcoin users.
A leading Bitcoin information site is warning users that an upcoming version of the Blockchain consolidation software and Bitcoin wallets could most likely be targeted by "state-sponsored attackers."
Recently, one of the world's most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, Bitfinex, suffered a major hack that resulted in a loss of around $72 Million worth of Bitcoins.
Now, Bitcoin.org, the website that hosts downloads for Bitcoin Core, posted a message on its website on Wednesday warning users that the next version of the Bitcoin Core wallet, one of the most popular bitcoin wallets used to store bitcoins, might be replaced with a malicious version of the software offered by government-backed hackers.
Specifically, Chinese bitcoin users and services are encouraged to be vigilant "due to the origin of the attackers."
Bitcoin.org doesn't believe it has sufficient resources to defend against the attack. However, the website did not reveal the name of the country planning the attack.
The Warning Message from the Bitcoin.org site reads:
"Bitcoin.org has reason to suspect that the binaries for the upcoming Bitcoin Core release will likely be targeted by state-sponsored attackers. As a website, Bitcoin.org does not have the necessary technical resources to guarantee that we can defend ourselves from attackers of this calibre. We ask the Bitcoin community, and in particular the Chinese Bitcoin community to be extra vigilant when downloading binaries from our website."
"In such a situation, not being careful before you download [the software] could cause you to lose all your coins. This malicious software might also cause your computer to participate in attacks against the Bitcoin network."
Also Read: Bitcoin Exchange Offers $3.5 Million Reward for Information of Stolen Bitcoins.
In such cases, it is likely that hackers will try to hijack and replace the official binary files used to run Bitcoin software on mining pools, either:
By compromising the Bitcoin.org official site
By conducting a man-in-the-middle attack to fake a cryptographic certificate that would allow hackers to intercept victim's encrypted HTTPS connection and replace the legitimate download with a malicious one, tricking users into installing a malicious version of the Bitcoin software.
However, Bitcoin Core developer Eric Lombrozo told The Reg that "there's absolutely nothing in the Bitcoin Core binaries, as built by the Bitcoin Core team, that has been targeted by state-sponsored attackers that we know of at this point."
"Perhaps certain sites where people download the binaries could end up getting compromised, but let's not unnecessarily spread paranoia about the Bitcoin Core binaries themselves."
Verify Signatures and Hashes
As a countermeasure, users are recommended to verify the Signature securely and hashes of Bitcoin Core binaries that are cryptographically signed with a key before running Bitcoin Core binaries to ensure the binaries are legitimate as being created by the Core developers team.
"We strongly recommend that you download that key, which should have a fingerprint of 01EA5486DE18A882D4C2684590C8019E36C2E964. You should securely verify the signature and hashes before running any Bitcoin Core binaries," the advisory states.
Moreover, you are advised to download the binaries from the official Bitcoin site only; otherwise, you may end up getting compromised.
| Cyber_Attack |
Indian Banks may switch to Linux, rather than taking extended Windows XP Support | https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/indian-banks-switching-to-linux-rather.html | As we have reported you earlier that Microsoft is pulling out their Windows XP support after April 8 2014. Since a vast majority of bank ATMs around the world currently runs on Windows XP, but if they'll continue sticking to it after the deadline, then they'll be exposed to all kinds of security threats, as Microsoft will no longer provide the security patches thereafter.
Many countries' Banks have got a way out, many banks have arranged or are in the process of arranging extended support for Windows XP for which they are ready to pay Microsoft millions of dollars, but may be not in the case of India. Yes, India will never feed Microsoft for providing extra support to the older version; rather they could switch over to the Linux operating system.
India has around 115,000 ATMs across the country at present and the counts will go up in coming days, but the end of life for XP will not affect banks and functioning of ATMs as the financial institutions across the country are well prepared for life without the much popular OS, according to the Indian Banks Association (IBA).
ATMs will continue to run the outdated system for some time past the expiration date, thanks to Windows Embedded powering ATMs, cash registers. According to Microsoft, Windows XP Embedded is less susceptible to viruses, and the company is providing support for it until early 2016.
IBA says neither branches nor cash vending machines will be shut down once Microsoft stops support for the system from April 8. Many Banks have already moved to Windows 7, or are in the process of moving, which will require hardware upgrades and some are considering to choose Linux. These hardware upgrades and software enhancements might be a costly headache for ATM manufacturers and banks, but the improvements are a win for customers who use these machines on a daily basis.
"Banks are definitely well-prepared and the industry is seized of the matter. I am very sure that you will not see a problem where ATMs or bank counters are shut because of this," said the industry lobby's chief executive MV Tanksale at an event in Mumbai. "Only the old ATMs may face some problem as all the newer machines are running on newer platforms," he added.
Indian banks do not themselves operate their ATMs, rather outsource them to third-party vendors like Diebold and NCR.
Girish Chavan, national manager of Diebold said, "all ATMs are not connected to the Internet so a hacker would need to reach it through the bank's network,....and to breach a bank's firewall is not easy." But maybe firms are underestimating the tactics of hackers and cybercriminals, who are always one step ahead in hacking ATMs and defeating all current security mechanisms.
A few months back it was revealed at the Chaos Computing Congress that hackers in Europe are targeting ATM Machines using Malware-loaded USB drives to steal money.
The malware infection rate for Windows XP is already almost six times higher than Windows 8 systems. So, to switch on to the other operating system will benefit the organizations and financial institutions.
Moreover, Indian ATM manufacturer Vortex offers a low-power Linux based system called Ecoteller, for example, that's being used in developing countries.
The Reserve Bank of India had highlighted the issue on Tuesday, saying banking operations may be hit once the Windows XP gets phased out.
"Banks are definitely well prepared and the industry is seized of the matter. I am very sure that you will not see a problem where ATMs or bank counters are shut because of this," chief executive MV Tanksale said.
"The probability of attacks on such a system may increase and it may be difficult to defend such attacks in the absence of Microsoft support," RBI had said in a circular to banks.
The Tamil Nadu State Government's has recently advised all its departments to move on to free open source software BOSS Linux as a key benefit of it will ultimately be a huge saving to the government.
"Consider installing BOSS (Bharat Operating System Solutions) Linux as one of the mandatory operating system," said the order issued by the TN Information Technology Department. "The huge investment cost involved in purchasing closed source software (such as Windows XP) may be avoided, which in turn translates into huge savings for the government," the order stated.
So, if your Bank is planning to upgrade their ATMs, should it be Windows 7/8 or Linux??
| Malware |
Hacker Who DDoSed Sony, EA and Steam Gaming Servers Pleads Guilty | https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/gaming-server-ddos-attack.html | A 23-year-old hacker from Utah pleaded guilty this week to launching a series of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks against multiple online services, websites, and online gaming companies between 2013 and 2014.
According to a Justice Department (DoJ) press release, Austin Thompson, a.k.a. "DerpTroll," took down servers of several major gaming platforms including Electronic Arts' Origin service, the Sony PlayStation network, and Valve Software's Steam, between December 2013 and January 2014, by flooding them with enough internet traffic.
Thompson then typically used the Twitter account the @DerpTrolling handle to announce his attacks, subsequently posting screenshots or other photos of the server being unavailable after launching DDoS attacks.
The attacks usually took down game servers and related computers of the victim companies for at least a few hours at a time, causing at least $95,000 in damages to the gaming companies around the world.
"Denial-of-service attacks cost businesses millions of dollars annually," said U.S. Attorney Adam Braverman while announcing the plea. "We are committed to finding and prosecuting those who disrupt businesses, often for nothing more than ego."
Thompson pleaded guilty in federal court in San Diego on Thursday and was charged with causing damages to a protected computer, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years prison, a fine of $250,000, as well as three years supervised release.
Active since 2011, the DerpTrolling hacking group is believed to be operated by Thompson, who write malware used to launch the DDoS attacks against online services around the world.
However, the hacking group made headlines in late 2013 and early 2014 after disrupting online gaming servers owned by Sony, Riot Games, Microsoft, Nintendo, Valve, and Electronic Arts.
Thompson's sentencing is scheduled for March 1, 2019, before United States District Judge Jeffrey Miller.
It wasn't just DerpTrolling that created chaos in 2014. The infamous Lizard Squad hacking group also made headlines in 2014 by launching DDoS attacks against Microsoft Xbox Live and Sony PlayStation Network and knocking them offline during the Christmas holidays.
Several teenagers last year from around the world were charged with participating in the Lizard Squad 2014 DDoS attacks.
| Cyber_Attack |
Yahoo! Hack! How It Took Just One-Click to Execute Biggest Data Breach in History | https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/yahoo-data-breach-hack.html | In the digital world, it just takes one click to get the keys to the kingdom.
Do you know spear-phishing was the only secret weapon behind the biggest data breach in the history?
It's true, as one of the Yahoo employees fell victim to a simple phishing attack and clicked one wrong link that let the hackers gain a foothold in the company's internal networks.
You may be familiar with phishing attacks — an attempt to steal user credentials or financial data — while, Spear-phishing is a targeted form of phishing in which attackers trick employees or vendors into providing remote-access credentials or opening a malicious attachment containing an exploit or payload.
Here's how the Yahoo's massive data breach was traced back to human error and who were the alleged masterminds behind this hack.
On Wednesday, the US government charged two Russian spies (Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin) and two criminal hackers (Alexsey Belan and Karim Baratov) in connection with the 2014 Yahoo hack that compromised about 500 million Yahoo user accounts.
While the indictment provided details on the 2014 Yahoo hack, the FBI officials recently gave a fresh insight into how the two officers from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) hired two hackers to gained initial access to Yahoo in early 2014.
Here's How the Yahoo Hack Initiated:
The hack began with a "Spear Phishing" e-mail sent to a "semi-privileged" Yahoo employees and not the company's top executives early in 2014.
Although it is unclear how many Yahoo employees were targeted in the attack and how many emails were sent by the hackers, it only takes one employee to click on either a malicious attachment or a link, and it gave attackers direct access to Yahoo's internal networks.
Russian Spies HIRED Cyber Criminals to Hack Into Yahoo Servers; Here's How They Did It.
CLICK TO TWEET
Once in, Alexsey Belan, who is already on the FBI's Most Wanted Hackers list, started poking around the network and, according to the FBI, discovered two key assets:
Yahoo's User Database (UDB) – a database containing personal information about all Yahoo users.
The Account Management Tool – an administrative tool used to edit the database.
Belan used the file transfer protocol (FTP) to download the Yahoo database, containing usernames, phone numbers, security questions and answers, and, what's worse, password recovery emails and a cryptographic value unique to each Yahoo account.
Recovery emails and unique cryptographic values enabled Belan and fellow hacker Baratov to access the accounts of certain users requested by the Russian spies, Dokuchaev and Sushchin.
Since the Account Management Tool did not allow for simple text searches of usernames, the hackers began identifying targets based on their recovery email address.
Once identified, the hackers then used stolen cryptographic values called "nonces" to generate forged access cookies for specific user accounts, giving both the FSB agents and Belan access to users' email accounts without the need for any password.
According to the FBI, those cookies were generated many times between 2015 and 2016 to access "more than 6,500 Yahoo accounts," out of the roughly 500 million accounts.
Victims Targeted by the Russian Spies:
According to the indictment, among other foreign webmail and Internet-related service providers, the Russian spies accessed the Yahoo accounts belonging to:
An assistant to the deputy chairman of Russia.
An officer in Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs.
A trainer working in Russia's Ministry of Sports.
Russian journalists.
Officials of states bordering Russia.
U.S. government workers.
An employee of a Swiss Bitcoin wallet company.
A U.S. airline worker.
FBI special agent John Bennett told a news conference that Yahoo first approached the bureau in 2014, regarding the hack and was "great partners" during its investigation.
However, the company took two years to go public in December 2016 with details of the data breach and advised hundreds of millions of its customers to change their passwords.
Baratov was arrested on Tuesday by the Toronto Police Department, while Belan and the two FSB officers are in Russia. The United States has requested all the three to be handed over to face charges, but the US has no extradition treaty with Russia.
| Data_Breaches |
Dell Resets All Customers' Passwords After Potential Security Breach | https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/dell-data-breach-hacking.html | Multinational computer technology company Dell disclosed Wednesday that its online electronics marketplace experienced a "cybersecurity incident" earlier this month when an unknown group of hackers infiltrated its internal network.
On November 9, Dell detected and disrupted unauthorized activity on its network attempting to steal customer information, including their names, email addresses and hashed passwords.
According to the company, the initial investigation found no conclusive evidence that the hackers succeeded to extract any information, but as a countermeasure Dell has reset passwords for all accounts on Dell.com website whether the data had been stolen or not.
Dell did not share any information on how hackers managed to infiltrate its network at the first place or how many user accounts were affected, but the company did confirm that payment information and Social Security numbers were not targeted.
"Credit card and other sensitive customer information were not targeted. The incident did not impact any Dell products or services," Dell says.
You are affected if you have ever created an account on the Dell website to purchase any of their products or to access the online support.
"Upon detection of the attempted extraction, Dell immediately implemented countermeasures and initiated an investigation. Dell also retained a digital forensics firm to conduct an independent investigation and has engaged law enforcement," the company said.
We will update this story as more information becomes available.
| Data_Breaches |
Ecuador Bank Hacked — $12 Million Stolen in 3rd Attack on SWIFT System | https://thehackernews.com/2016/05/swift-banking-hack.html | Bangladesh is not the only bank that had become victim to the cyber heist. In fact, it appears to be just a part of the widespread cyber attack on global banking and financial sector by hackers who target the backbone of the world financial system, SWIFT.
Yes, the global banking messaging system that thousands of banks and companies around the world use to transfer Billions of dollars in transfers each day is under attack.
A third case involving SWIFT has emerged in which cyber criminals have stolen about $12 million from an Ecuadorian bank that contained numerous similarities of later attacks against Bangladesh's central bank that lost $81 Million in the cyber heist.
The attack on Banco del Austro (BDA) in Ecuador occurred in January 2015 and, revealed via a lawsuit filed by BDA against Wells Fargo, a San Francisco-based bank on Jan. 28, Reuters reported.
Here's how cyber criminals target banks:
Uses malware to circumvent local security systems of a bank.
Gains access to the SWIFT messaging network.
Sends fraudulent messages via SWIFT to initiate cash transfers from accounts at larger banks.
Over ten days, hackers used SWIFT credentials of a bank employee to modify transaction details for at least 12 transfers amounting to over $12 Million, which was transferred to accounts in Hong Kong, Dubai, New York and Los Angeles.
In the lawsuit, BDA holds Wells Fargo responsible for not spotting the fraudulent transactions and has demanded Wells Fargo to return the full amount that was stolen from the bank.
The lawsuit filed by BDA in a New York federal court described that the some of these attacks could have been prevented if banks would have shared more details about the attacks with the SWIFT organization.
Wells Fargo has also fired back and blamed BDA's information security policies and procedures for the heist and noted that it "properly processed the wire instructions received via authenticated SWIFT messages," according to court documents.
According to reports, the heist remained a secret for a long time and now disclosed when BDA decided to sue Wells Fargo that approved the fraudulent transfers.
SWIFT did not have any idea about the breach, as neither BDA nor Wells Fargo shared any detail about the attack.
"We were not aware," SWIFT said in a statement. "We need to be informed by customers of such frauds if they relate to our products and services so that we can inform and support the wider community. We have been in touch with the bank concerned to get more information, and are reminding customers of their obligations to share such information with us."
It turns out that the security of SWIFT itself was not breached in the attack, but cyber criminals used advanced malware to steal credentials of bank's employees and cover their tracks.
In February, $81 Million cyberheist at the Bangladesh central bank was carried out by hacking into SWIFT using a piece of malware that manipulated logs and erased the fraudulent transactions history, and even prevented printers from printing those transactions.
| Cyber_Attack |
Android Trojan GingerMaster Uses Gingerbread Root Exploit | https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/android-trojan-gingermaster-uses.html | Android Trojan GingerMaster Uses Gingerbread Root Exploit
As our smartphones become more ubiquitous and more powerful, they need to be protected in much the same way that you would protect your computer. Further to this, a malicious piece of malware has been discovered for devices powered by Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread, giving the hacker the ability to take complete control of the smartphone remotely. According to Assistant Professor Xuxian Jiang from the NCSU Department of Computer Science, the new threat, which his team has dubbed GingerMaster, is the first malware to use the root exploit for Android 2.3. "As this is the first time such malware has been identified, it is not surprising when our experiments show that it can successfully evade the detection of all tested (leading) mobile anti-virus software," he writes.
Once the GingerMaster malware is installed and has root privileges, it then reaches out to a remote command-and-control server and asks for instructions. It then has the ability to download and install apps on its own, without the user's permission, Jiang found. GingerMaster is an evolution of the existing DroidKungFu malware, which had some of the same functionality. Earlier this week, Jiang's team also found other variants of DroidKungFu in several dozen infected apps in alternate Android app stores. That version included a couple of root exploits as well, but for earlier versions of Android.
As far as we can tell, no "official" applications being offered through Android Market have been affected by GingerMaster, but it's best to err on the side of caution when it comes to these things. Recognize that your Android smartphone is very much a computer and, as such, is just as vulnerable to attacks as your home PC. The researchers recommend that users take several steps to protect themselves. The first one is to run a mobile antivirus product. There are several free solutions available from vendors like Lookout, AVG, BitDefender or Symantec.Then, users should only download apps from trusted marketplaces, like the official Android Market. Unfortunately, there is no assurances that malware won't slip through the cracks and appear on these services from time to time, but the chances are lower than in other places.Finally, users should make a habit from reading and understanding the permissions requested by apps on installation. Trojanized apps will usually require permissions that legit versions wouldn't need.
| Malware |
Malware that transfers stolen data using Inaudible Audio signals | https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/Malware-Inaudible-Audio-signals-badbios-virus.html | If you think that a computer which is not connected to a network, doesn't have any USB sticks attached to it and doesn't accept any kind of electronic connection requests are reasonably safe against hackers and from all the malware, then you are Wrong.
Here we have something shocking update that Some German Scientists have developed a proof of concept Malware prototype, could allow a hacker to infect your computers and other digital devices just using Inaudible Audio signals.
The ability to bridge an air gap could be a potent infection vector. Just imagine, a cyber attack using high-frequency sound waves to infect machines, where stolen data also can be transferred back to attacker without a network connection, Sounds very terrifying ?
When a few weeks ago, a security researcher Dragos Ruiu claimed malware dubbed badBIOS allowed infected machines to communicate using sound waves alone, means that the devices are physically disconnected from any networks, including the internet, people said he was crazy.
But Now German Researchers have published a paper on how malware can be designed to cross the air gap by transmitting information through speakers and recording it via microphone.
Rather than relying on TCP-IP, they used a network stack originally developed for underwater communication and the signal was propagated through the use of a software-defined modem based on the GNU Radio project.
In a scenario based hacking, "The infected victim sends all recorded keystrokes to the covert acoustical mesh network. Infected drones forward the keystroke information inside the covert network till the attacker is reached, who is now able to read the current keyboard input of the infected victim from a distant place." paper explained.
In another scenario, the researchers used sound waves to send keystroke information to a network-connected computer, which then sent the information to the attacker via email.
While the research doesn't prove Dragos Ruiu's badBIOS claims, but it does show that even if the system is disconnected from any network, could still be vulnerable to attackers. However, I would like to appreciate Dragos dedication about badBIOS research because this extraordinary concept was first introduced by him only.
Researchers POC Malware is able to transfer data at 20 bits per second only, which is very low, but that's still capable of transferring your password or credit card number to the hacker in a few seconds.
Some basic countermeasures one can adopt to protect against such malware are:
Switching off the audio input and output devices from the system.
Employ audio filtering that blocks high-frequency ranges.
Using an Audio Intrusion Detection Guard.
Lets see how Antivirus companies will handle such threats to protect home users.
| Malware |
Severe Auth Bypass and Priv-Esc Vulnerabilities Disclosed in OpenBSD | https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/openbsd-authentication-vulnerability.html | OpenBSD, an open-source operating system built with security in mind, has been found vulnerable to four new high-severity security vulnerabilities, one of which is an old-school type authentication bypass vulnerability in BSD Auth framework.
The other three vulnerabilities are privilege escalation issues that could allow local users or malicious software to gain privileges of an auth group, root, as well as of other users, respectively.
The vulnerabilities were discovered and reported by Qualys Research Labs earlier this week, in response to which OpenBSD developers released security patches for OpenBSD 6.5 and OpenBSD 6.6 just yesterday—that's in less than 40 hours.
Here's a brief explanation of all four security vulnerabilities in OpenBSD—a free and open-source BSD-based Unix-like operating system—along with their assigned CVE identifiers
OpenBSD Authentication Bypass (CVE-2019-19521)
The authentication bypass vulnerability resides in the way OpenBSD's authentication framework parses the username supplied by a user while logging in through smtpd, ldapd, radiusd, su, or sshd services.
Using this flaw, a remote attacker can successfully access vulnerable services with any password just by entering the username as "-schallenge" or "-schallenge: passwd," and it works because a hyphen (-) before username tricks OpenBSD into interpreting the value as a command-line option and not as a username.
Here, OpenBSD's authentication framework interprets "-schallenge" as "-s challenge," which forces the system into silently ignoring the challenge protocol that eventually bypasses the authentication automatically.
"If an attacker specifies a username of the form '-option', they can influence the behavior of the authentication program in unexpected ways," the advisory said.
According to the researchers, this vulnerability is practically exploitable in smtpd, ldapd, and radiusd, but not in sshd or su due to their defense-in-depth mechanisms that hang the connection even after successful authentication bypass.
However, one can still remotely exploit the flaw against sshd to determine whether an OpenBSD system is vulnerable to CVE-2019-19521 or not.
OpenBSD Local Privilege Escalation Flaws
As described above, the other OpenBSD vulnerabilities are local privilege escalation issues as briefly explained below:
CVE-2019-19520: Due to the mishandling of environment-provided paths used in dlopen(), xlock, which comes installed by default on OpenBSD, could allow local attackers to escalate privileges to 'auth' group.
CVE-2019-19522: Due to incorrect operation of authorization mechanisms via "S/Key" and "YubiKey," which is a non-default configuration, a local attacker with 'auth' group permission can gain full privileges of the root user.
CVE-2019-19519: Due to a logical error in one of the su's primary functions, a local attacker can achieve any user's login class, often excluding root, by exploiting su's -L option.
Qualys researchers have also released proof-of-concept exploits for each vulnerability in its advisory.
Since patches for all four security vulnerabilities are now available, affected OpenBSD users recommended to install patches using syspatch mechanism.
| Vulnerability |
Anti-DDoS Services Abused to Carry Out DDoS Attack with 1.5 Billion Requests/Minute | https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/anti-ddos-services-abuse-to-ddos-at-15.html | Till Now the Internet was encountering the traditional Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, where a large number of compromised systems use to flood servers with tremendous amount of bandwidth; but in past few months we have noticed massive change in the techniques of DDoS attack.
Hackers are using creative, but evil DDoS techniques such as NTP and DNS Amplification DDoS attacks. Last month we have seen that how cybercriminals abused a vulnerability in one of the biggest Chinese video hosting website Sohu.com to convert their millions of visitors to participate into the Layer 7 (Application Layer) DDoS attack with 20 Million requests.
According to the new report released by a US based security solutions provider Incapsula, another interesting DDoS attack activities have been noticed by the researchers in which an attacker abused two major anti-DDoS Service providers to perform massive DDoS attack on other websites.
Its really EPIC that the services who should protect websites from DDoS attack, itself compromised to perform DDoS on other web services.
The researchers at the security firm noticed a surge of massive DNS DDoS attack on one of its client, peaking at approximately 25Mpps (Million packets per second).
"With multiple reports coming from different directions, and with several large scale attacks on our own infrastructure, we are now convinced that what we are seeing here is an evolving new trend - one that can endanger even the most hardened network infrastructures," reads the report.
This time, hacker used the DNS DDoS attack, which is totally different and more responsive from the previously most commonly used DNS amplification attack by the hackers, both in their methods of execution and in the type of trouble they aim to deliver.
DNS amplification attack is an asymmetrical DDoS attack in which the attacker set the source address to that of the targeted victim by using spoofed Internet Protocol (IP) of the target, which means the target receives the replies from all the DNS servers that are used, making it the recipient of much larger DNS responses. "With these attacks the offender's goal is to achieve network saturation by continuously exhausting the target's bandwidth capacity," Incapsula wrote.
But its totally different in the case of DNS DDoS attack as DNS floods are symmetrical DDoS attacks in which the attacker tries to exhaust the server-side assets (for e.g., memory or CPU) with the large number of UDP requests generated by the malicious scripts running on several compromised botnet machines. The packets sends per seconds are even larger in this case compare to DNS amplification attack.
"With DNS amplification, the effectiveness of an attacker's own resources is increased by anywhere from 300% to 1000%, which means that large attacks could be initiated by relatively small botnets", says the report. "On the other hand, with DNS floods there is no multiplier to speak of at all. This means that, in order to generate a DNS flood at the rate of 25Mpps, the offender needs access to an equally powerful botnet infrastructure."
By using the same DNS DDoS attack, the hacker succeeded in sending the malicious requests through two different servers at a rate of 1.5 Billion DNS queries per minute, amounting to over 630 Billion requests during the course of the 7 hour-long DDoS attack.
Both the servers used by the attacker belongs to anti-DDoS service providers, one of which is based in Canada and the other in China. After acknowledging the attack, Incapsula informed both the anti-DDoS vendors, which then dropped the responsible clients from using their services.
"Malicious misuse of security solutions is anything but new. However, this is the first time we encountered "rogue" scrubbing servers used to carry out large-scale DDoS attacks. This fact, combined with the inherit danger of non-amplified DNS floods, is what makes these attacks so devastatingly dangerous," the researchers said.
DNS Amplification DDoS attack could be defended by dropping all unexpected DNS responses to port 53, whereas DNS Flood queries are difficult to differentiate from the legitimate DNS queries, and it is not possible to drop all DNS queries in order to migrate the attack. However this could be filtered when individually processed at the server level, but such process is practically very difficult to execute. Thankfully, the Impact of DNS Flood attack depends upon the capacity of the attacker's own resources.
As we all have seen that DDoS trend is changing and to perform massive DDoS attacks, hacker are using every tantrum by leveraging the weakness of different protocols and boosting the sizes of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.
| Vulnerability |
Subsets and Splits