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Update Google Chrome Browser to Patch New Critical Security Flaws | https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/google-chrome-update.html | Google has released an urgent software update for its Chrome web browser and is urging Windows, Mac, and Linux users to upgrade the application to the latest available version immediately.
Started rolling out to users worldwide this Wednesday, the Chrome 77.0.3865.90 version contains security patches for 1 critical and 3 high-risk security vulnerabilities, the most severe of which could allow remote hackers to take control of an affected system.
Google has decided to keep details of all four vulnerabilities secret for a few more days in order to prevent hackers from exploiting them and give users enough time to install the Chrome update.
For now, Chrome security team has only revealed that all four vulnerabilities are use-after-free issues in different components of the web browser, as mentioned below, the critical of which could lead to remote code execution attacks.
The use-after-free vulnerability is a class of memory corruption issue that allows corruption or modification of data in the memory, enabling an unprivileged user to escalate privileges on an affected system or software.
Vulnerabilities Patched By Chrome 77.0.3865.90
Use-after-free in UI (CVE-2019-13685) — Reported by Khalil Zhani
Use-after-free in media (CVE-2019-13688) — Reported by Man Yue Mo of Semmle Security Research Team
Use-after-free in media (CVE-2019-13687) — Reported by Man Yue Mo of Semmle Security Research Team
Use-after-free in offline pages (CVE-2019-13686) — Reported by Brendon Tiszka
Google has paid out a total of $40,000 in rewards to Man Yue Mo of Semmle for both the vulnerabilities—$20,000 for CVE-2019-13687 and $20,000 for CVE-2019-13688—while the bug bounties for the remaining two vulnerabilities are yet to be decided.
Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the browser just by convincing victims into just opening, or redirecting them to, a specially-crafted web-page on the affected Chrome browser, without requiring any further interaction.
Based on previous discloses, the use-after-free flaw could also lead to sensitive information disclosure, security restrictions bypass, unauthorized actions, and cause denial-of-service conditions—depending on the privileges associated with the application.
Though Google Chrome automatically notifies users about the latest available version, users are recommended to manually trigger the update process by going to "Help → About Google Chrome" from the menu.
Besides this, you are also recommended to run all software on your systems, whenever possible, as a non-privileged user to diminish the effects of successful attacks exploiting any zero-day vulnerability.
We will update you more about these security vulnerabilities as soon as Google releases their technical details.
| Vulnerability |
13 Critical Flaws Discovered in AMD Ryzen and EPYC Processors | https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/amd-processor-vulnerabilities.html | Security researchers claimed to have discovered 13 critical Spectre/Meltdown-like vulnerabilities throughout AMD's Ryzen and EPYC lines of processors that could allow attackers to access sensitive data, install persistent malware inside the chip, and gain full access to the compromised systems.
All these vulnerabilities reside in the secure part of the AMD's Zen architecture processors and chipsets—typically where device stores sensitive information such as passwords and encryption keys and makes sure nothing malicious is running when you start your PC.
The alleged vulnerabilities are categorized into four classes—RYZENFALL, FALLOUT, CHIMERA, and MASTERKEY—and threaten wide-range of servers, workstations, and laptops running vulnerable AMD Ryzen, Ryzen Pro, Ryzen Mobile or EPYC processors.
Discovered by a team of researchers at Israel-based CTS-Labs, newly disclosed unpatched vulnerabilities defeat AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) technology and could allow attackers to bypass Microsoft Windows Credential Guard to steal network credentials.
Moreover, researchers also claimed to have found two exploitable manufacturer backdoors inside Ryzen chipset that could allow attackers to inject malicious code inside the chip.
Researchers successfully tested these vulnerabilities against 21 different AMD products and believe that 11 more products are also vulnerable to the issues.
Though AMD is currently investigating the accuracy of these flaws, Dan Guido, the founder of security firm Trail of Bits, who got early access to the full technical details and PoC exploits, have independently confirmed that all 13 AMD flaws are accurate and works as described in the paper.
Here's the brief explanation of all the vulnerabilities:
RYZENFALL (v1, v2, v3, v4) AMD Vulnerabilities
These flaws reside in AMD Secure OS and affect Ryzen secure processors (workstation/pro/mobile).
According to researchers, RYZENFALL vulnerabilities allow unauthorized code execution on the Ryzen Secure Processor, eventually letting attackers access protected memory regions, inject malware into the processor itself, and disable SMM protections against unauthorized BIOS reflashing.
Attackers could also use RYZENFALL to bypass Windows Credential Guard and steal network credentials, and then use the stolen data to spread across to other computers within that network (even highly secure Windows corporate networks).
RYZENFALL can also be combined with another issue called MASTERKEY (detailed below) to install persistent malware on the Secure Processor, "exposing customers to the risk of covert and long-term industrial espionage."
FALLOUT (v1, v2, v3) AMD Vulnerabilities
These vulnerabilities reside in the bootloader component of EPYC secure processor and allow attackers to read from and write to protected memory areas, such as SMRAM and Windows Credential Guard isolated memory.
FALLOUT attacks only affect servers using AMD's EPYC secure processors and could be exploited to inject persistent malware into VTL1, where the Secure Kernel and Isolated User Mode (IUM) execute code.
Like RYZENFALL, FALLOUT also let attackers bypass BIOS flashing protections, and steal network credentials protected by Windows Credential Guard.
"EPYC servers are in the process of being integrated into data centers around the world, including at Baidu and Microsoft Azure Cloud, and AMD has recently announced that EPYC and Ryzen embedded processors are being sold as high-security solutions for mission-critical aerospace and defense systems," researchers say.
"We urge the security community to study the security of these devices in depth before allowing them on mission-critical systems that could potentially put lives at risk."
CHIMERA (v1, v2) AMD Vulnerabilities
These two vulnerabilities are actually hidden manufacturer backdoors inside AMD's Promontory chipsets that are an integral part of all Ryzen and Ryzen Pro workstations.
One backdoor has been implemented in firmware running on the chip, while the other in the chip's hardware (ASIC), and allow attackers to run arbitrary code inside the AMD Ryzen chipset, or to re-flash the chip with persistent malware.
Since WiFi, network and Bluetooth traffic flows through the chipset, an attacker could exploit the chipset's man-in-the-middle position to launch sophisticated attacks against your device.
"This, in turn, could allow for firmware-based malware that has full control over the system, yet is notoriously difficult to detect or remove. Such malware could manipulate the operating system through Direct Memory Access (DMA), while remaining resilient against most endpoint security products," researchers say.
According to the researchers, it may be possible to implement a stealthy keylogger by listening to USB traffic that flows through the chipset, allowing attackers to see everything a victim types on the infected computer.
"Because the latter has been manufactured into the chip, a direct fix may not be possible, and the solution may involve either a workaround or a recall," researchers warn.
MASTERKEY (v1, v2, v3) AMD Vulnerabilities
These three vulnerabilities in EPYC and Ryzen (workstation/pro/mobile) processors could allow attackers to bypass hardware validated boot to re-flash BIOS with a malicious update and infiltrate the Secure Processor to achieve arbitrary code execution.
Like RYZENFALL and FALLOUT, MASTERKEY also allows attackers to install stealthy and persistent malware inside AMD Secure Processor, "running in kernel-mode with the highest possible permissions," as well as bypass Windows Credential Guard to facilitate network credential theft.
MASTERKEY vulnerabilities also allow attackers to disable security features such as Firmware Trusted Platform Module (fTPM) and Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV).
It's notable that all these vulnerabilities require either low-privilege access, or administrative in some cases, on the targeted system to work.
CTS-Lab researchers gave just 24 hours to the AMD team to look at all vulnerabilities and respond before going public with their details—that's hell quick for any company to understand and patch the critical level issues properly.
While Intel and Microsoft are still managing its patches for Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, the newly discovered vulnerabilities could create similar trouble for AMD and its customers.
So, let's wait and watch when the company comes up with fixes, though the researchers said it could take "several months to fix" all the issues.
For more detailed information about the vulnerabilities, you can head on to this paper [PDF] titled, "Severe Security Advisory on AMD Processors," published by CTS-Lab.
| Malware |
13 Million MacKeeper Users Hacked — 21 GB of Data Exposed | https://thehackernews.com/2015/12/mackeeper-antivirus-hacked_14.html | MacKeeper anti-virus company is making headlines today for its lax security that exposed the database of 13 Million Mac users' records including names, email addresses, usernames, password hashes, IP addresses, phone numbers, and system information.
MacKeeper is a suite of software that claims to make Apple Macs more secure and stable, but today the anti-virus itself need some extra protection after a data breach exposed the personal and sensitive information for Millions of its customers.
The data breach was discovered by Chris Vickery, a white hat hacker who was able to download 13 Million customer records by simply entering a selection of IP addresses, with no username or password required to access the data.
21 GB Trove of MacKeeper Customer Data Leaked
31-year-old Vickery said he uncovered the 21 GB trove of MacKeeper customer data in a moment of boredom while searching for openly accessible databases on Shodan – a specialized search engine that looks for virtually anything connected to the Internet – that require no authentication.
"The search engine at Shodan.io had indexed their IPs as running publicly accessible MongoDB instances (as some have already guessed)," Vickery said in a Reddit post. "I had never even heard of MacKeeper or Kromtech until last night. I just happened upon it after being bored and doing a random "port:27017" search on Shodan."
As a result, four IP addresses took him straight to a MongoDB database, containing a range of personal information, including:
Customer Names
Email addresses
Usernames
Password hashes
Mobile phone numbers
IP addresses
System information
Software licenses and activation codes
Security Product Using Weak Algorithm to Hash Passwords
Although the passwords were encrypted, Vickery believes that MacKeeper was using weak MD5 hashes to protect its customer passwords, allowing anyone to crack the passwords in seconds using MD5 cracking tools.
The company responded to the issue after Vickery posted it on Reddit, saying that the company had no evidence the data was accessed by malicious parties.
"Analysis of our data storage system shows only one individual gained access performed by the security researcher himself," Kromtech, the maker of MacKeeper, said in a statement. "We have been in communication with Chris, and he has not shared or used the data inappropriately."
Though the company claims Vickery was the only person to access the MacKeeper users''information; you should still change your MacKeeper passwords and passwords on websites that use the same password.
| Data_Breaches |
Mac trojan poses as PDF to open botnet backdoor | https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/mac-trojan-poses-as-pdf-to-open-botnet.html | Mac trojan poses as PDF to open botnet backdoor
There's another Mac OS X Trojan out in the wild, and it might be heading your way.If you open the file, which could appear as an emailed attachment or as a Web link, the document, written in traditional Chinese ideograms, does indeed display. But a Trojan silently installs itself in the background as you try to sort out centuries-old territorial claims.The Trojan doesn't really do anything yet. But F-Secure, the Finnish security firm that discovered it, notes that it lays the groundwork for much more sophisticated attacks against Macs.
The malware in question has been identified as Trojan-Dropper:OSX/Revir.A, which installs a backdoor, Backdoor:OSX/Imuler.A, onto the user's Mac. Currently, however, the backdoor doesn't communicate with anything. The command-and-control center for this particular malware is apparently a bare Apache installation, which has been sitting at its current domain since May of this year. Because of this, users who might fall victim to this attack aren't likely to see many ill effects for the time being, but that could change if the files end up spreading to a wider audience.
MD5 hashes for the samples:
• Trojan-Dropper:OSX/Revir.A: fe4aefe0a416192a1a6916f8fc1ce484
• Trojan-Downloader:OSX/Revir.A: dfda0ddd62ac6089c6a35ed144ab528e
• Backdoor:OSX/Imuler.A: 22b1af87dc75a69804bcfe3f230d8c9d
Usually, backdoors are employed to communicate with a remote command-and-control (C&C) server, which is capable of instructing the payload to siphon off data from the infected computer back to the attackers. However, F-Secure found that the C&C server is a bare Apache installation, not yet capable of communicating with the backdoor.
| Malware |
Google Details iOS, Chrome, IE Zero-Day Flaws Exploited Recently in the Wild | https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/google-details-ios-chrome-ie-zero-day.html | Threat intelligence researchers from Google on Wednesday shed more light on four in-the-wild zero-days in Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer browsers that were exploited by malicious actors in different campaigns since the start of the year.
What's more, three of the four zero-days were engineered by commercial providers and sold to and used by government-backed actors, contributing to an uptick in real-world attacks. The list of now-patched vulnerabilities is as follows -
CVE-2021-1879: Use-After-Free in QuickTimePluginReplacement (Apple WebKit)
CVE-2021-21166: Chrome Object Lifecycle Issue in Audio
CVE-2021-30551: Chrome Type Confusion in V8
CVE-2021-33742: Internet Explorer out-of-bounds write in MSHTML
Both Chrome zero-days — CVE-2021-21166 and CVE-2021-30551 — are believed to have been used by the same actor, and were delivered as one-time links sent via email to targets located in Armenia, with the links redirecting unsuspecting users to attacker-controlled domains that masqueraded as legitimate websites of interest to the recipients.
The malicious websites took charge of fingerprinting the devices, including collecting system information about the clients, before delivering a second-stage payload.
When Google rolled out a patch for CVE-2021-30551, Shane Huntley, Director of Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), revealed that the vulnerability was leveraged by the same actor that abused CVE-2021-33742, an actively exploited remote code execution flaw in Windows MSHTML platform that was addressed by Microsoft as part of its Patch Tuesday update on June 8.
The two zero-days were provided by a commercial exploit broker to a nation-state adversary, which used them in limited attacks against targets in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, Huntley previously added.
Now according to a technical report published by the team, all the three zero-days were "developed by the same commercial surveillance company that sold these capabilities to two different government-backed actors," adding the Internet Explorer flaw was used in a campaign targeting Armenian users with malicious Office documents that loaded web content within the web browser.
Google did not disclose the identities of the exploit broker or the two threat actors that used the vulnerabilities as part of their attacks.
SolarWinds Hackers Exploited iOS Zero-Day
The Safari zero-day, in contrast, concerned a WebKit flaw that could enable adversaries to process maliciously crafted web content that may result in universal cross-site scripting attacks. The issue was rectified by Apple on March 26, 2021.
Attacks leveraging CVE-2021-1879, which Google attributed to a "likely Russian government-backed actor," were executed by means of sending malicious links to government officials over LinkedIn that, when clicked from an iOS device, redirected the user to a rogue domain that served the next-stage payloads.
It's worth noting that the offensive also mirrors a wave of targeted attacks unleashed by Russian hackers tracked as Nobelium, which was found abusing the vulnerability to strike government agencies, think tanks, consultants, and non-governmental organizations as part of an email phishing campaign.
Nobelium, a threat actor linked to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), is also suspected of orchestrating the SolarWinds supply chain attack late last year. It's known by other aliases such as APT29, UNC2452 (FireEye), SolarStorm (Unit 42), StellarParticle (Crowdstrike), Dark Halo (Volexity), and Iron Ritual (Secureworks).
"Halfway into 2021, there have been 33 zero-day exploits used in attacks that have been publicly disclosed this year — 11 more than the total number from 2020," TAG researchers Maddie Stone and Clement Lecigne noted. "While there is an increase in the number of zero-day exploits being used, we believe greater detection and disclosure efforts are also contributing to the upward trend."
| Malware |
Stuxnet 3.0 to be possibility released at MalCon? | https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/stuxnet-30-to-be-possibility-released.html | Stuxnet 3.0 to be possibility released at MalCon?
Malware coders and security researchers are increasingly looking at MalCon malware convention to show-off their latest creations and research. We were pretty shocked to see in a twitter update today from MalCon, that one of the research paper submissions shortlisted is on possible features of Stuxnet 3.0.
While this may just be a discussion and not a release, it is interesting to note that the speaker Nima Bagheri presenting the paper is from IRAN.
For refreshing your memory, Stuxnet is a computer worm discovered in June 2010. It targets Siemens industrial software and equipment running Microsoft Windows.While it is not the first time that hackers have targeted industrial systems,it is the first discovered malware that spies on and subverts industrial systems, and the first to include a programmable logic controller (PLC) rootkit.
What is alarming is the recent discovery (On 1 September 2011) of a new worm - thought to be related to Stuxnet. The Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security (CrySyS) of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics analyzed the malware, naming the threat Duqu. Symantec, based on this report, continued the analysis of the threat, calling it "nearly identical to Stuxnet, but with a completely different purpose", and published a detailed technical paper.The main component used in Duqu is designed to capture information such as keystrokes and system information. The exfiltrated data may be used to enable a future Stuxnet-like attack.
The research paper abstract discusses rootkit features and the malware authors may likely show demonstration at MalCon with new research releated to hiding rootkits and advanced stuxnet like malwares.
Released or not, MalCon certainly leaves plently of room for imagination of the future with computing - and hope we don't get to live the Die Hard 4.0 someday.
| Malware |
EPIC Fail — For the Third Time, Linux Ransomware CRACKED! | https://thehackernews.com/2016/01/linux-ransomware-decryption.html | Ransomware is now a common practice for money-motivated cyber criminals. It's basically a type of software written in any system-based programming language that has the ability to hijack victim's computer, encrypts files and then ask for a ransom amount to get them back.
One such ransomware dubbed Linux.Encoder targets Linux-powered websites and servers by encrypting MySQL, Apache, and home/root folders associated with the target site and asks for 1 Bitcoin ($453.99) to decrypt those crucial files.
But, the good news is it is very easy to get rid of it.
The Malware author released the third version of the Linux.Encoder ransomware, which security researchers from Bitdefender have managed to crack, yet again, after breaking previous two versions.
However, before the team managed to release the Linux.Encoder decryption tool, the third iteration of Linux.Encoder ransomware, which was first discovered by antivirus maker Dr.Web, has infected a nearly 600 servers worldwide.
Linux.Encoder Decryption Tool
Though victims who got infected by the third version of Linux.Encoder ransomware doesn't have to pay any ransom to get your important files back, and they can simply unlock it using Bitdefender's Linux.Encoder decryption tool to unlock their files.
But the epic part here is even after the successful decryption of its previous Linux.Encoder ransomware versions, the group of ransomware creators, were still not able to write a perfect code for its third version.
"As we expected, the creators of Linux.Encoder have fixed their previous bugs and have come up with a new and improved variant," says BitDefender boffin Radu Caragea. "Luckily for the victims, the new variant of Linux.Encoder is still vulnerable to key recovery attacks."
It seems that the malware authors of Linux.encoder ransomware are newbie programmers who are just motivated by the success of other popular ransomware such as CryptoWall and CryptoLocker.
Also Read: CryptoWall Ransomware raised $325 Million in Revenue for Its Developer
This incident shows that there could be hundreds of other young newbies who are developing their own ransomware in order to earn money like other organised cyber criminal gangs.
Moreover, it would be easier for law enforcement agencies, like Europol, to trace such immature programmers, as they might not be perfect in hiding themselves.
| Malware |
Tether Hacked — Attacker Steals $31 Million of Digital Tokens | https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/tether-bitcoin-hacked.html | Again some bad news for cryptocurrency users.
Tether, a Santa Monica-based start-up that provides a dollar-backed cryptocurrency tokens, has claimed that its systems have been hacked by an external attacker, who eventually stole around $31 million worth of its tokens.
With a market capitalization of $673 million, Tether is the world's first blockchain-enabled platform to allow the traditional currency to be used like digital currency.
Tether serves as a proxy for the US dollar, Euro (and soon Japanese yen) that can be sent between exchanges including Bitfinex, Poloniex, Omni, GoCoin and other markets.
According to an announcement on the company's official website posted today, the unknown hacker stole the tokens (worth $30,950,010) from the Tether Treasury wallet on November 19 and sent them to an unauthorized Bitcoin address.
The stolen tokens will not be redeemed, but the company is in the process of attempting token recovery in order to prevent them from entering the broader cryptocurrency market.
The attacker is holding stolen funds at the following bitcoin address:
16tg2RJuEPtZooy18Wxn2me2RhUdC94N7r
So, in case, you receive any USDT (that's what Tether calls its platform's USD currency; 1USDT=1USD) "tokens from the above address, or from any downstream address that receives these tokens, do not accept them, as they have been flagged and will not be redeemable by Tether for USD," the company warned.
Bitcoin price dropped as much as 5.4 percent, the most since November 13.
To prevent the stolen coins from moving from the attacker's address, the company has temporarily suspended its back-end wallet service and also provided a new version of its software.
"Accordingly, any and all exchanges, wallets, and other Tether integrators should install this software immediately in order to prevent loss: https://github.com/tetherto/omnicore/releases/tag/0.2.99.s," the company said.
The Tether Team has also ensured that Tether issuances have not been affected by this attack, and all of its tokens remain fully backed by assets in the Tether reserve.
Instead, the only tokens that won't be redeemed at this moment are those stolen from Tether treasury yesterday. However, these tokens will be returned to treasury once the software enhancements are in place.
Tether is also undertaking a thorough investigation of the incident in an attempt to prevent similar attacks in the future.
This incident is the latest in a long list of attacks against the cryptocurrency markets. Just last week, about $300 million worth of Ether from dozens of Ethereum wallets was permanently locked up after someone triggered a flaw in Parity multi-sig wallets.
| Cyber_Attack |
Malware for xbox Kinect created by 15 years old Indian researchers | https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/malware-for-xbox-kinect-created-by-15.html | Malware for xbox Kinect created by 15 years old Indian researchers
Indian researchers from MalCon have created a malware that utlizes Microsoft Kinect to secretly capture pictures and upload to a picasa account.
A 15year old Indian security researcher 'Shantanu Gawde' from MalCon Research has created a malware that utilizes the Microsoft xbox kinect controller.
Kinect for Xbox 360, or simply Kinect, is a motion sensing input device by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 video game console. With over 10 million devices sold till date, the kinect holds the Guiness book for world record for the fastest selling consumer electronics device - and is exactly the reason why the malware is a concern.
In recent months, there have been a number of innovative kinect hacks that make use of the kinect using both Open source drivers and the Kinect SDK. The malware, code-named 'gawde' after its creators name, works on Windows 7 to secretly capture pictures of the victim / surroundings from a connected Kinect device and uploads them to a picasa account.
Rajshekhar Murthy, Director at ISAC, (Information Sharing and Anaysis Center), a scientifc non-profit body that holds the International Malware Conference, MalCon said. "We believe that in coming years, a lot of windows based applications will be developed for Kinect and the device will gain further immense popularity and acceptance- and from a perpective of an attacker, such a popular device can be an exciting target for visual and audio intelligence. At MalCon research labs, we promote proactive security research and the malware utilizing Kinect is only a proof of concept. "
The kienct malware 'gawde' goes a step ahead and even uses voice recognition to execute a program based on keyword, without the knowledge of the victim. The malware PoC will be demonstrated at the upcoming MalCon 2011 in Mumbai, India.
| Vulnerability |
Microsoft Word Zero-Day Vulnerability is being exploited in the Wild | https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/microsoft-word-zero-day-vulnerability.html | Microsoft warned about a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Word that is being actively exploited in targeted attacks and discovered by the Google security team. "At this time, we are aware of limited, targeted attacks directed at Microsoft Word 2010…" company said.
According to Microsoft's security advisory, Microsoft Word is vulnerable to a remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2014-1761) that can be exploited by a specially crafted Rich Text Format (RTF).
An Attacker can simply infect the victim's system with malware if a user opens a malicious Rich Text Format (RTF), or merely preview the message in Microsoft Outlook.
"The issue is caused when Microsoft Word parses specially crafted RTF-formatted data causing system memory to become corrupted in such a way that an attacker could execute arbitrary code."
Microsoft acknowledged that remote code execution flaw also exists in Microsoft Word 2003, 2007, 2013, Word Viewer and Office for Mac 2011.
Microsoft is working on an official patch, which will be released with the next Patch Tuesday security updates on April 8.
But in the meantime, Windows users can use temporary 'Fix It' tool to patch this vulnerability and also can install Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) tool that can mitigate this vulnerability.
Do not download .RTF files from the suspicious websites, and do not open or preview .RTF email attachments from strangers.
| Vulnerability |
Two Critical 0-Day Remote Exploits for vBulletin Forum Disclosed Publicly | https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/vbulletin-forum-hacking.html | Security researchers have discovered and disclosed details of two unpatched critical vulnerabilities in a popular internet forum software—vBulletin—one of which could allow a remote attacker to execute malicious code on the latest version of vBulletin application server.
vBulletin is a widely used proprietary Internet forum software package based on PHP and MySQL database server. It powers more than 100,000 websites on the Internet, including Fortune 500 and Alexa Top 1 million companies websites and forums.
The vulnerabilities were discovered by a security researcher from Italy-based security firm TRUEL IT and an unknown independent security researcher, who disclosed the details of the vulnerabilities by Beyond Security's SecuriTeam Secure Disclosure program.
The vulnerabilities affect version 5 of the vBulletin forum software and are currently unpatched. Beyond Security claims, it tried to contact vBulletin since November 21, 2017, but received no response from the company.
vBulletin Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
The first vulnerability discovered in vBulletin is a file inclusion issue that leads to remote code execution, allowing a remote attacker to include any file from the vBulletin server and execute arbitrary PHP code.
An unauthenticated attacker can trigger the file inclusion vulnerability by sending a GET request to index.php with the routestring= parameter in the request, eventually allowing the attacker to "create a crafted request to Vbulletin server installed on Windows OS and include any file on the web server."
The researcher has also provided Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploit code to show the exploitation of the vulnerability. A Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) number has not been assigned to this particular vulnerability.
vBulletin Remote Arbitrary File Deletion Vulnerability
The second vulnerability discovered in the vBulletin forum software version 5 has been assigned CVE-2017-17672 and described as a deserialization issue that an unauthenticated attacker can exploit to delete arbitrary files and even execute malicious code "under certain circumstances."
The vulnerability is due to unsafe usage of PHP's unserialize() on user-supplied input, which allows an unauthenticated hacker to delete arbitrary files and possibly execute arbitrary code on a vBulletin installation.
A publicly exposed API, called vB_Library_Template's cacheTemplates() function, allows fetching information on a set of given templates from the database to store them inside a cache variable.
"$temnplateidlist variable, which can come directly from user-input, is directly supplied to unserialize(), resulting in an arbitrary deserialization primitive," the advisory explains.
Besides technical details, the advisory also includes Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploit code to explain the severity of this vulnerability.
We expect the vendor to release the patch for both the security flaws before hackers started exploiting them to target vBulletin installations.
| Vulnerability |
Industrial VPN Flaws Could Let Attackers Target Critical Infrastructures | https://thehackernews.com/2020/07/industrial-vpn-security.html | Cybersecurity researchers have discovered critical vulnerabilities in industrial VPN implementations primarily used to provide remote access to operational technology (OT) networks that could allow hackers to overwrite data, execute malicious code, and compromise industrial control systems (ICS).
A new report published by industrial cybersecurity company Claroty demonstrates multiple severe vulnerabilities in enterprise-grade VPN installations, including Secomea GateManager M2M Server, Moxa EDR-G902, and EDR-G903, and HMS Networks eWon's eCatcher VPN client.
These vulnerable products are widely used in field-based industries such as oil and gas, water utilities, and electric utilities to remotely access, maintain and monitor ICS and field devices, including programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and input/output devices.
According to Claroty researchers, successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities can give an unauthenticated attacker direct access to the ICS devices and potentially cause some physical damage.
In Secomean's GateManager, researchers uncovered multiple security flaws, including a critical vulnerability (CVE-2020-14500) that allows overwriting arbitrary data, executing arbitrary code, or causing a DoS condition, running commands as root, and obtaining user passwords due to the use of a weak hash type.
GateManager is a widely used ICS remote access server deployed worldwide as a cloud-based SaaS solution that allows users to connect to the internal network from the internet through an encrypted tunnel while avoiding server setups.
The critical flaw, identified as CVE-2020-14500, affects the GateManager component, the main routing instance in the Secomea remote access solution. The flaw occurs due to improper handling of some of the HTTP request headers provided by the client.
This flaw can be exploited remotely and without requiring any authentication to achieve remote code execution, which could result in gaining full access to a customer's internal network, along with the ability to decrypt all traffic that passes through the VPN.
In Moxa EDR-G902 and EDR-G903 industrial VPN servers, researchers discovered a stack-based buffer overflow bug (CVE-2020-14511) in the system web server that can be triggered just by sending a specially crafted HTTP request, eventually allowing attackers to carry out remote code execution without the need for any credentials.
Claroty researchers also tested HMS Networks' eCatcher, a proprietary VPN client that connects to the company's eWon VPN device, and found that the product is vulnerable to a critical stack-based buffer overflow (CVE-2020-14498) that can be exploited to achieve remote code execution.
All an attacker needs to do is tricking victims into visiting a malicious website or opening a malicious email containing a specifically crafted HTML element that triggers the flaw in eCatcher, eventually allowing attackers to take complete control of the targeted machine.
All three vendors were notified of the vulnerabilities and responded quickly to release security fixes that patch their products' loopholes.
Secomea users are recommended to update their products to the newly released GateManager versions 9.2c / 9.2i, Moxa users need to update EDR-G902/3 to version v5.5 by applying firmware updates available for the EDR-G902 series and EDR-G903 series, and HMS Networks users are advised to update eCatcher to Version 6.5.5 or later.
| Cyber_Attack |
Don't Install Crap ! Bitcoin Mining malware bundled with Potentially Unwanted Programs | https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/dont-install-crap-bitcoin-mining.html | The increasing public attention of Bitcoin did not go unnoticed by Cyber Criminals who have begun unleashing Bitcoin Mining malware.
Security researchers at Malwarebytes warned about a new malware threat, in which Bitcoin Miners are bundled with third party potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) that come bundled with legitimate applications.
Malware allow cybercriminals to utilize systems' computing resources for their own gain. "This type of system hijacking is just another way for advertising based software to exploit a user into getting even more cash."
The malware is found to be using 'jhProtominer' a popular mining software that runs via the command line, to abuse the CPUs and GPUs of infected computers to generate Bitcoins.
Upon further investigation Malwarebytes found that the parent of the Bitcoin miner was "monitor.exe", a part of YourFreeProxy application, which "beacons out constantly, waiting for commands from a remote server, eventually downloading the miner and installing it on the system."
However, it seems that the company behind the application has a specific clause 3 in the EULA that talks about mathematical calculations similar to the Bitcoin mining operation. This means that the company behind the software can and will install Bitcoin miners and use system resources to perform operations as required to mine Bitcoins and keep the rewards for themselves.
The growing presence of Bitcoin-mining malware reinforced the increasing popularity of the currency. Cyber Criminals always try to find new ways to monetize their malicious activities. Bitcoin generation allows them to do just that.
To be safe, we highly recommend you use a professional Antivirus solution able to find and safely remove malware from your system. Safe computing habits can help prevent system infection and Bitcoin mining, so do not download and install applications from unknown sites.
| Malware |
Microsoft released Security Patch for CVE-2013-5065 TIFF Zero-Day vulnerability | https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/microsoft-released-security-patch-for.html | Microsoft has released 11 Security Patch this Tuesday, including one for CVE-2013-5065 zero-day vulnerability, recently discovered Local privilege escalation vulnerability that could allow a hacker to launch an attack using corrupted TIFF images to take over victims' computers.
FireEye researchers said they found the exploit in the wild being used alongside a PDF-based exploit against a patched Adobe Reader vulnerability.
December's Patch Tuesday update bundle brings five bulletins ranked critical, including a patch for a vulnerability that could allow remote code execution in Internet Explorer and another remote code execution vulnerability in Office and Microsoft Server is also addressed.
Other patches addressing remote code execution vulnerabilities in Lync, all versions of Office and Microsoft Exchange. All supported versions of Windows, from XP to RT and 8.1, are affected by at least one of the critical vulnerabilities.
The Six Security bulletins rated important deal with local elevation of privilege vulnerabilities in Windows and Microsoft Developer Tools.
Users are recommended to upgrade to Windows 7/above or Linux Distributions, and make sure that you have installed the latest versions of Adobe Reader.
Microsoft has also released an updated version (1.163.1657.0) of the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool.
| Vulnerability |
Critical Flaws Found in Amazon FreeRTOS IoT Operating System | https://thehackernews.com/2018/10/amazon-freertos-iot-os.html | A security researcher has discovered several critical vulnerabilities in one of the most popular embedded real-time operating systems—called FreeRTOS—and its other variants, exposing a wide range of IoT devices and critical infrastructure systems to hackers.
What is FreeRTOS (Amazon, WHIS OpenRTOS, SafeRTOS)?
FreeRTOS is a leading open source real-time operating system (RTOS) for embedded systems that has been ported to over 40 microcontrollers, which are being used in IoT, aerospace, medical, automotive industries, and more.
RTOS has specifically been designed to carefully run applications with very precise timing and a high degree of reliability, every time.
A pacemaker is an excellent example of the real-time embedded system that contracts heart muscle at the right time, a process that can't afford delays, to keep a person alive.
Since late last year, FreeRTOS project is being managed by Amazon, who created Amazon FreeRTOS (a:FreeRTOS) IoT operating system for microcontrollers by upgrading FreeRTOS kernel and some of its components.
Amazon enhanced FreeRTOS functionalities by adding modules for secure connectivity, over the air updates, code signing, AWS cloud support, and more.
Besides Amazon, WITTENSTEIN high integrity systems (WHIS) also maintains two variants of FreeRTOS—a commercial version of FreeRTOS called WHIS OpenRTOS, and a safety-oriented RTOS called SafeRTOS, for use in safety-critical devices.
FreeRTOS Vulnerabilities and Security Patches
Ori Karliner, a security researcher at Zimperium Security Labs (zLabs), discovered a total of 13 vulnerabilities in FreeRTOS's TCP/IP stack that also affect its variants maintained by Amazon and WHIS, as shown below:
The vulnerabilities could allow attackers to crash the target device, leak information from its memory, and the most worrisome, remotely execute malicious code on it, thus taking complete control over the target device.
"During our research, we discovered multiple vulnerabilities within FreeRTOS's TCP/IP stack and in the AWS secure connectivity modules. The same vulnerabilities are present in WHIS Connect TCP/IP component for OpenRTOS\SafeRTOS," the researcher says.
According to the researcher, the vulnerabilities affect FreeRTOS versions up to 10.0.1 (with FreeRTOS+TCP), AWS FreeRTOS versions up to 1.3.1, and WHIS OpenRTOS and SafeRTOS (With WHIS Connect middleware TCP/IP components).
Zimperium responsibly reported the vulnerabilities to Amazon, and the company yesterday deployed security patches for AWS FreeRTOS versions 1.3.2 and onwards (latest v1.4.2).
"We also received confirmation from WHIS that they were exposed to the same vulnerabilities, and those were patched together with Amazon," zLabs says.
To allow smaller vendors to patch the issues before attackers try to leverage them, zLabs has decided not to disclose technical details of these vulnerabilities to the public for at least a month.
| Vulnerability |
Hacker Distributes Backdoored IoT Vulnerability Scanning Script to Hack Script Kiddies | https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/iot-vulnerability-scanner.html | Nothing is free in this world.
If you are searching for free hacking tools on the Internet, then beware—most freely available tools, claiming to be the swiss army knife for hackers, are nothing but a scam.
For example, Cobian RAT and a Facebook hacking tool that we previously reported on The Hacker News actually could hack, but of the one who uses them and not the one you desire to hack.
Now, a security researcher has spotted another hacking tool—this time a PHP script—which is freely available on multiple popular underground hacking forums and allows anyone to find vulnerable internet-connected IP Cameras running the vulnerable version of GoAhead embedded web-server.
However, after closely analysing the scanning script, Newsky Security researcher Ankit Anubhav found that the tool also contains a secret backdoor, which essentially allows its creator to "hack the hacker."
"For an attacker's point of view, it can be very beneficial to hack a hacker," Anubhav said.
"For example, if a script kiddie owns a botnet of 10,000 IoT and if he gets hacked, the entire botnet is now in control of the attacker who got control of the system of this script kiddie. Hence, by exploiting one device, he can add thousands of botnets to his army."
The rise of IoT botnet and release of Mirai's source code—the biggest IoT-based malware threat that emerged last year and took down Dyn DNS service—has encouraged criminal hackers to create their massive botnet either to launch DDoS attacks against their targets or to rent them to earn money.
As shown in the self-explanatory flowchart, this IoT scanning script works in four steps:
First, it scans a set of IP addresses to find GoAhead servers vulnerable to a previously disclosed authentication bypass vulnerability (CVE-2017-8225) in Wireless IP Camera (P2P) WIFI CAM devices.
In the background, it secretly creates a backdoor user account (username: VM | password: Meme123) on the wannabe hacker's system, giving the attacker same privilege as root.
Script also extracts the IP address of the wannabe hacker, allowing script author to access the compromised systems remotely.
Moreover, it also runs another payload on the script kiddie's system, eventually installing a well-known botnet, dubbed Kaiten.
This tool is another example of backdoored hacking tools increasingly being distributed at various underground forums to hack the hacker.
In September, a backdoored Cobian RAT builder kit was spotted on multiple underground hacking forums for free but was caught containing a backdoored module that aimed to provide the kit's authors access to all of the victim's data.
Last year, we reported about another Facebook hacking tool, dubbed Remtasu, that actually was a Windows-based Trojan with the capability to access Facebook account credentials, but of the one who uses it to hack someone else.
The bottom line: Watch out the free online stuff very carefully before using them.
| Malware |
Hackers Stole Customers' Payment Card Details From Over 700 Wawa Stores | https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/wawa-store-hacking.html | Have you stopped at any Wawa convenience store and used your payment card to buy gas or snacks in the last nine months?
If yes, your credit and debit card details may have been stolen by cybercriminals.
Wawa, the Philadelphia-based gas and convenience store chain, disclosed a data breach incident that may have exposed payment card information of thousands of customers who used their cards at about any of its 850 stores since March 2019.
What happened? According to a press release published on the company's website, on 4th March, attackers managed to install malware on its point-of-sale servers used to process customers' payments.
By the time it was discovered by the Wawa information security team on 10th December, the malware had already infected in-store payment processing systems at "potentially all Wawa locations."
That means attackers were potentially stealing Wawa customers' payment card information until the malware was entirely removed by its servers on 12th December 2019.
The company also said the malware was present on most locations' point-of-sale systems by approximately 22nd April 2019, although some Wawa locations may not have been affected at all.
What has been compromised? The malware stole credit and debit card information, including card numbers, expiration dates, and customer names on the payment cards used at potentially all of its in-store payment terminals and gas pumps between 4th March 2019, and 12th December 2019.
What's not been compromised? According to the company, debit card PINs, credit card CVV2 numbers, other PINs, driver's license information used to verify age-restricted purchases, and other personal information were not affected by this malware.
Wawa also made it clear that the PoS malware never posed a risk to its ATM cash machines, and at the time of the data breach disclosure, the company was not aware of any unauthorized use of any payment card information as a result of this incident.
How Wawa addressed the payment card breach? The company's information security team fully contained the malware within two days of its discovery, and immediately initiated an investigation by engaging a leading external forensics firm to investigate the incident and verify the extent of the breach.
Wawa also informed law enforcement to support their ongoing criminal investigation and notified payment card companies about the incident.
Wawa, which has over 850 convenience retail stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Florida, and Washington, DC, is also offering free identity theft protection and credit monitoring at no charge to anyone whose information may have been compromised.
"I apologize deeply to all of you, our friends and neighbors, for this incident," said Wawa President and CEO Chris Gheysens. "You are my top priority and are critically important to all of the nearly 37,000 associates at Wawa. We take this special relationship with you and the protection of your information very seriously."
What affected customers should do now? Customers who bought anything from any of the Wawa convenience stores since March this year are advised to monitor their payment card statements carefully.
In case you find any unauthorized charges, immediately notify the relevant payment card issuer of it and consider placing a fraud alert or security freeze on your credit file at Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.
Also, if possible, you should consider blocking the affected payment card and requesting a new one from your respective financial institution.
| Data_Breaches |
NSA's Hacking Group Hacked! Bunch of Private Hacking Tools Leaked Online | https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/nsa-hacking-tools.html | It seems like the NSA has been HACKED!
Update: The NSA Hack — What, When, Where, How, Who & Why? Explained Here.
An unknown hacker or a group of hackers just claimed to have hacked into "Equation Group" -- a cyber-attack group allegedly associated with the United States intelligence organization NSA -- and dumped a bunch of its hacking tools (malware, private exploits, and hacking tools) online.
I know, it is really hard to believe, but some cybersecurity experts who have been examining the leak data, exploits and hacking tools, believe it to be legitimate.
Hacker Demands $568 Million in Bitcoin to Leak All Tools and Data
Not just this, the hackers, calling themselves "The Shadow Brokers," are also asking for 1 Million Bitcoins (around $568 Million) in an auction to release the 'best' cyber weapons and more files.
Also Read: Links Found between NSA, Regin Spy tool and QWERTY Keylogger
Widely believed to be part of the NSA, Equation Group was described as "a threat actor that surpasses anything known in terms of complexity and sophistication of techniques, and that has been active for almost two decades," according to a report published by security firm Kaspersky in 2015.
Equation Group was also linked to the previous infamous Regin and Stuxnet attacks, allegedly the United States sponsored hacks, though the link was never absolutely proven.
Two days back, The Shadow Brokers released some files, which it claimed came from the Equation Group, on Github (deleted) and Tumblr.
Exploits for American & Chinese Firewalls Leaked:
The files mostly contained installation scripts, configurations for command-and-control (C&C) servers, and exploits allegedly designed to target routers and firewalls from American manufacturers including, Cisco, Juniper, and Fortinet.
According to the leaked files, Chinese company 'Topsec' was also an Equation Group target.
The leak mentioned names of some of the hacking tools that correlate with names used in the documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden, like "BANANAGLEE" and "EPICBANANA."
"We follow Equation Group traffic," says the Shadow Broker. "We find Equation Group source range. We hack Equation Group. We find many many Equation Group cyber weapons. You see pictures. We give you some Equation Group files free, you see. This is good proof no? You enjoy!!! You break many things. You find many intrusions. You write many words. But not all, we are auction the best files."
It is yet not confirmed whether the leaked documents are legitimate or not, but some security experts agree that it likely is.
"I haven't tested the exploits, but they definitely look like legitimate exploits," Matt Suiche, founder of UAE-based cyber security firm Comae Technologies, told the Daily Dot.
Also Read: NSA Planted Stuxnet-Type Malware Deep Within Hard Drive Firmware
While some are saying that the leak could be a very well-researched hoax, and the Bitcoin auction could be nothing but a distraction in an attempt to gain media attention.
"If this is a hoax, the perpetrators put a huge amount of effort in," security researcher The Grugq told Motherboard. "The proof files look pretty legit, and they are exactly the sorts of exploits you would expect a group that targets communications infrastructure to deploy and use."
However, if NSA has successfully been hacked, the hack would be a highly critical cyber security incident.
Update: The NSA Hack — What, When, Where, How, Who & Why? Explained Here.
| Malware |
Sony Mobile website hacked by NullCrew | https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/sony-mobile-website-hacked-by-nullcrew.html | Another Cyber attack on Sony this year, Hacking group called "NullCrew" hack into one of the biggest site of Sony mobile website (www.sonymobile.com) and leak complete database on Internet. Nullcrew releasing their hack dumps from their official twitter account @OfficialNull.
The dump of database released on Pastebin with a small note from Hackers as given below:
Sony, we are dearly dissapointed in your security.
This is just one of eight sony servers that we have control of.
Maybe, just maybe considering IP addresses are available.
Maybe, just maybe it's the fact that not even your customers can trust you.
Or maybe, just maybe the fact that you can not do anything correct technologically
Stats of Dump:
441 Members Username with Email Addresses
24 User names with Hashed password from Think_Users table
3 Admin user data from admin_user table
Not just Sony, Nullcrew recently hack into Cambodia Army website and dump database.
"Recently the co-founder of Piratebay was arrested in Cambodia, this seems like the megaupload case.As long as the government attempts to censor, then there will be more of this; what happened to Freedom."
"So that is why #OpTPB has come to be, they should have expected it when they did this.Cambodia, we will not stop until you come to your sences."
And also UK government website (data.gov.uk) to Support Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Hackers list all the Vulnerabilities on the server and upload database on file sharing site.
| Vulnerability |
LodaRAT Windows Malware Now Also Targets Android Devices | https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/lodarat-windows-malware-now-also.html | A previously known Windows remote access Trojan (RAT) with credential-stealing capabilities has now expanded its scope to set its sights on users of Android devices to further the attacker's espionage motives.
"The developers of LodaRAT have added Android as a targeted platform," Cisco Talos researchers said in a Tuesday analysis. "A new iteration of LodaRAT for Windows has been identified with improved sound recording capabilities."
Kasablanca, the group behind the malware, is said to have deployed the new RAT in an ongoing hybrid campaign targeting Bangladeshi users, the researchers noted.
The reason why Bangladesh-based organizations have been specifically singled out for this campaign remains unclear, as is the identity of the threat actor.
First documented in May 2017 by Proofpoint, Loda is an AutoIt malware typically delivered via phishing lures that's equipped to run a wide range of commands designed to record audio, video, and capture other sensitive information, with recent variants aimed at stealing passwords and cookies from browsers.
The latest versions — dubbed Loda4Android and Loda4Windows — are a lot alike in that they come with a full set of data-gathering features that constitute a stalker application. However, the Android malware is also different, as it particularly avoids techniques often used by banking Trojans, like abusing Accessibility APIs to record on-screen activities.
Besides sharing the same command-and-control (C2) infrastructure for both Android and Windows, the attacks, which originated in October 2020, have targeted banks and carrier-grade voice-over-IP software vendors, with clues pointing to the malware author being based in Morocco.
The attackers also made of a myriad number of social engineering tricks, ranging from typo squatted domains to malicious RTF documents embedded in emails, that, when opened, triggered an infection chain that leverages a memory corruption vulnerability in Microsoft Office (CVE-2017-11882) to download the final payload.
While the Android version of the malware can take photos and screenshots, read SMS and call logs, send SMS and perform calls to specific numbers, and intercept SMS messages or phone calls, its latest Windows counterpart comes with new commands that enable remote access to the target machine via Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and a "Sound" command that makes use of BASS audio library to capture audio from a connected microphone.
"The fact that the threat group has evolved into hybrid campaigns targeting Windows and Android shows a group that is thriving and evolving," said researchers with Cisco Talos.
"Along with these improvements, the threat actor has now focused on specific targets, indicating more mature operational capabilities. As is the case with earlier versions of Loda, both versions of this new iteration pose a serious threat, as they can lead to a significant data breach or heavy financial loss."
| Malware |
Russians selling access to private company servers in just $4 | https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/russians-selling-access-to-private.html | We have already seen vulnerability in Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a potential dangers of desktop remote-access tools commonly used by IT departments to handle help-desk issues and by administrators to manage virtualized machines.
According to reports from krebsonsecurity, A Russian company called "dedicated express" (Dedicatexpress.com) is selling access to private company servers for as little as $4. Cyber criminals have hacked around 17,000 computers worldwide using such insecure applications in server and selling them in underground markets. Although almost 300,000 compromised systems have passed through this service since its inception in early 2010.
New customers who contact the service's owner via instant message and pay a $20 registration fee via WebMoney, a virtual currency. The price of any hacked server is calculated based on several qualities, including the speed of its processor and the number of processor cores, the machine's download and upload speeds, and the length of time that the hacked RDP server has been continuously available online.
He found that a Fortune 500 company - Cisco server was also on sale on the "dedicated express" site. The username and the password for the RDP service were "Cisco", respectively "Cisco" The machine was a Windows Server 2003 system in San Jose, Calif., being sold for $4.55
On another note, Dedicatexpress works directly with hackers who earn commissions for selling the RDP machines to the service.
So how can you use remote desktop access safely? Follow some Tips:
- Using a strong password.
- Limit users who can log on to the host computer.
- Set the number of password attempts until the user is locked out.
- Allow only certain IP addresses to access the Remote Desktop.
The 2012 Global IT Risk Report from Kaspersky Lab is now available to download here. According to reports , 91% of businesses have experienced at least one cyber threat 41% feel they are underprepared.
| Vulnerability |
Microsoft Warns CrowdStrike of Hackers Targeting Azure Cloud Customers | https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/microsoft-warns-crowdstrike-of-hackers.html | New evidence amidst the ongoing probe into the espionage campaign targeting SolarWinds has uncovered an unsuccessful attempt to compromise cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike and access the company's email.
The hacking endeavor was reported to the company by Microsoft's Threat Intelligence Center on December 15, which identified a third-party reseller's Microsoft Azure account to be making "abnormal calls" to Microsoft cloud APIs during a 17-hour period several months ago.
The undisclosed affected reseller's Azure account handles Microsoft Office licensing for its Azure customers, including CrowdStrike.
Although there was an attempt by unidentified threat actors to read the emails, it was ultimately foiled as the firm does not use Microsoft's Office 365 email service, CrowdStrike said.
The incident comes in the wake of the supply chain attack of SolarWinds revealed earlier this month, resulting in the deployment of a covert backdoor (aka "Sunburst") via malicious updates of a network monitoring software called SolarWinds Orion.
Since the disclosure, Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, Intel, NVIDIA, and a number of US government agencies have confirmed finding tainted Orion installations in their environments.
The development comes a week after the Windows maker, itself a SolarWinds customer, denied hackers had infiltrated its production systems to stage further attacks against its users and found evidence of a separate hacking group abusing Orion software to install a separate backdoor called "Supernova."
It also coincides with a new report from The Washington Post today, which alleges Russian government hackers have breached Microsoft cloud customers and stolen emails from at least one private-sector company by taking advantage of a Microsoft reseller that manages cloud-access services.
"Our investigation of recent attacks has found incidents involving abuse of credentials to gain access, which can come in several forms. We have not identified any vulnerabilities or compromise of Microsoft product or cloud services," Microsoft's Senior Director Jeff Jones said in an email response to The Hacker News.
CrowdStrike has also released CrowdStrike Reporting Tool for Azure (CRT), a free tool that aims to help organizations review excessive permissions in their Azure Active Directory or Office 365 environments and help determine configuration weaknesses.
In addition, the US Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) has separately created a similar open-source utility called Sparrow to help detect possible compromised accounts and applications in Azure or Office 365 environments.
"The tool is intended for use by incident responders and is narrowly focused on activity that is endemic to the recent identity- and authentication-based attacks seen in multiple sectors," CISA said.
For its part, SolarWinds has updated its security advisory, urging customers to update Orion Platform software to version 2020.2.1 HF 2 or 2019.4 HF 6 to mitigate the risks associated with Sunburst and Supernova vulnerabilities.
| Cyber_Attack |
Apache Tomcat Multiple Critical Vulnerabilities | https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/apache-tomcat-multiple-critical.html | Some critical vulnerabilities have been reported in Apache Tomcat, which can be exploited by malicious people to bypass certain security restrictions and cause a DoS (Denial of Service) attack. These vulnerabilities affect Apache Tomcat 6.x and Apache Tomcat 7.x .
Apache Tomcat vulnerabilities
CVE-2012-4534 Apache Tomcat denial of service
CVE-2012-3546 Apache Tomcat Bypass of security constraints
CVE-2012-4431 Apache Tomcat Bypass of CSRF prevention filter
According to CVE-2012-4431 , The CSRF prevention filter could be bypassed if a request was made to a protected resource without a session identifier present in the request.
CVE-2012-4534, DOS includes vulnerabilities ranging from excessive resource consumption (e.g. causing a system to use a lot of memory) to crashing an application or an entire system.
Whereas, CVE-2012-3546 - where malicious users or people can bypass certain security mechanisms of the application. The actual impact varies significantly depending on the design and purpose of the affected application.
If you are affected, Please update your Tomcat to a fixed version i.e
Tomcat 7.x: Update to version 7.0.32.
Tomcat 6.x: Update to version 6.0.36.
| Vulnerability |
Tumblr Worm affects thousands blogs, spam offensive articles | https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/tumblr-worm-affects-thousands-blogs.html | A notorious group of Internet trolls says it has unleashed a worm that has littered Tumblr blogs with inflammatory and racist posts. A massive bug affecting some 8,600 unique Tumblr users. Gay Nigger Association of America, took responsibility for the attack.
The infected post begins: "Dearest 'Tumblr' users ,This is in response to the seemingly pandemic growth and world-wide propagation of the most fucking worthless, contrived, bourgeoisie, self-congratulating and decadent bullshit the internet ever had the fortune of faciliating."
How worm work ? Worm took advantage of Tumblr's reblogging feature, meaning that anyone who was logged into Tumblr would automatically reblog the infectious post if they visited one of the offending pages. Naked Security said.
In a message posted to the company's official Twitter account, the blogging site said, "We are aware that there is a viral post circulating on Tumblr. We are working to resolve the issue as swiftly as possible. Thank you. "
The Gay Nigger Association of America (GNAA) is an anti-blogging Internet-trolling organization. They have trolled several prominent websites and Internet personalities including Slashdot, Wikipedia, CNN, Barack Obama's campaign website, Alex Jones, and prominent members of the blogosphere.
They have also released software products and leaked screenshots and information about upcoming operating systems. In addition, they maintain a wiki-based site dedicated to Internet commentary and a software repository.
The micro-blogging site says its engineers are working on a fix.
| Malware |
World's First Google Glass Spyware app unveiled | https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/worlds-first-google-glass-spyware-app_19.html | In the mob of Smart Devices, after Smartphones... Google glass would definitely be the next must-have device. It's non-other than a small computer you wear like eyeglasses allows you to surf the Web, email, text, take photos, live videos and more, -- all hands free.
Google Glasses are yet in very limited release, but researchers have developed the world's first spyware that could hijack your Google's Glass computer eyepieces.
Two Polytechnic graduate researchers, 22-year-old Mike Lady and 24-year-old Kim Paterson, from California designed an app that has the capability to convert the Google Glass into a Spy Camera, click a photo every ten seconds without giving any visible sign to the wearer, Forbes reported yesterday.
The malware app developed by the researchers, masquerades itself as a fair piece of note-taking software, ironically dubbed as 'Malnotes', that trick users accept the permissions which allow them to capture images of whatever the glass wearer is looking at, in every 10 seconds when Glass's display is turned off and uploads them to the remote server.
Although, it's Google's developer policy which specifically ban apps that capture images while the device display is off, but the two California researchers proved that there were no real security prohibitions to enforce this policy.
Forbes reported that in a short video interview with the researchers, the Google Glass handset running Malnotes belonging to Mike Lady apparently uploaded more than 150 snapshots of his vision, with no indication for either him or any other person.
"The scary thing for us is that while it's a policy that you can't turn off the display when you use the camera, there's nothing that actually prevents you from doing it," says Paterson. "As someone who owns Glass and wants to install more apps, I'd feel a lot better if it were simply impossible to do that. Policies don't really protect us."
The researchers were successful in uploading the malicious app into the Google app store which was subsequently removed from the Google when the news broke. But, when their professor tweeted about their work and received a response from a Google staffer, they didn't bother to try uploading the app to Google MyGlass app store.
Such malicious apps could be served via 3rd party app stores or could be installed using a USB cable via computer, when in debug mode. Just yesterday, we have reported about a Windows Spy tool that can even install a spyware app to Android devices connected to the infected computer.
The Google spokesperson stated in response, "Right now Glass is still in an experimental phase and has not been widely released to consumers. One goal of the Explorer program is to get Glass in the hands of developers so they can hack together features and discover security exploits."
| Malware |
Las Vegas Sands' Casino Network hit by Destructive Malware | https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/las-vegas-casino-hacked.html | Sony Pictures Entertainment hack that started at the end of the last month and so far has caused a severe damage to its reputation as well as resources, from internal system shutdown to upcoming movies and scripts leak. Now, a similar cyber attack against Casino operator Las Vegas Sands Corp has been revealed that occurred on February 2014.
The cyber attack occurred on this year's February but the details of damages to the casino was not publicized until Bloomberg Businessweek exposed it in a story on Thursday. Hackers crippled thousands of servers and computers across the network of the giant Las Vegas Sands Corp. by wiping them with highly destructive malware.
The hack attack was believed to be in response to the statement given by the chief executive officer and largest shareholder of Las Vegas Sands Corp., Sheldon Adelson. On October 2013, the billionaire made a statement at the Manhattan campus of Yeshiva University that Iran should be bombed to get the country to abandon its own nuclear program.
"What I would do," he said during the panel, rather than negotiating, "would be to say, 'Do you see that desert over there? I want to show you something.' You pick up your cell phone and you call somewhere in Nebraska and you say 'Ok let it go.'…Then you say, 'See? The next one is in the middle of Tehran."
This statement given by Adelson circulated on all over the Internet and reached Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameeni, who responded after two weeks later and said that the American government should "slap these prating people in the mouth and crush their mouths."
Two months later, the attackers attacked the Las Vegas Sands' IT network to destroy the corporation and continues their attacks last January on the company's virtual private network gateway at its slots casino in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
The attack went worse in February, when hackers breached server for the casino's website and used an open tool to fetch usernames and passwords. Finally, they found the credentials of a senior systems engineer who had visited the Bethlehem site from Las Vegas, which gave them keys to the corporate castle. The attackers wiped out data on computers and servers and erased hard drives, as malware ripped through the company's networks.
"Those credentials got the hackers into the gaming company's servers in Las Vegas," Bloomberg reported. "As they rifled through the master network, the attackers readied a malware bomb. Typing from a Sony (SNE) VAIO computer, they compiled a small piece of code, only about 150 lines long, in the Visual Basic programming language."
Hackers posted personal information about Sands Bethlehem employees, stolen email addresses and social security numbers. They also left personal messages for Adelson, "Encouraging the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction, UNDER ANY CONDITION, is a Crime, signed, the Anti WMD Team," said one. "Damn A, Don't let your tongue cut your throat," warned another.
The virus was written in a Visual basic language, which is a common desktop programming language. Visual basic malwares were used in past because of a limitation that it runs on Windows system.
A spokesperson for cybersecurity firm Dell SecureWorks, who was brought to clean up the after-damage caused to the company and determine its actual cause, denied to comment on the issue due to the policy made by the company not to discuss work done for a customer.
Also, the company spokesman Ron Reese declined to comment on the details provided in the report published by Bloomberg, saying, "I'm not going to confirm anything that was speculated or written in the Bloomberg story."
| Malware |
Pulse Secure VPNs Get New Urgent Update for Poorly Patched Critical Flaw | https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/pulse-secure-vpns-get-new-urgent-update.html | Pulse Secure has shipped a fix for a critical post-authentication remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in its Connect Secure virtual private network (VPN) appliances to address an incomplete patch for an actively exploited flaw it previously resolved in October 2020.
"The Pulse Connect Secure appliance suffers from an uncontrolled archive extraction vulnerability which allows an attacker to overwrite arbitrary files, resulting in Remote Code Execution as root," NCC Group's Richard Warren disclosed on Friday. "This vulnerability is a bypass of the patch for CVE-2020-8260."
"An attacker with such access will be able to circumvent any restrictions enforced via the web application, as well as remount the filesystem, allowing them to create a persistent backdoor, extract and decrypt credentials, compromise VPN clients, or pivot into the internal network," Warren added.
The disclosure comes days after Ivanti, the company behind Pulse Secure, published an advisory for as many as six security vulnerabilities on August 2, urging customers to move quickly to update to Pulse Connect Secure version 9.1R12 to secure against any exploitation attempts targeting the flaws.
Tracked as CVE-2021-22937 (CVSS score: 9.1), the shortcoming could "allow an authenticated administrator to perform a file write via a maliciously crafted archive uploaded in the administrator web interface," according to Pulse Secure. CVE-2020-8260 (CVSS core: 7.2), which concerns an arbitrary code execution flaw using uncontrolled gzip extraction, was remediated in October 2020 with version 9.1R9.
"CVE-2021-2293 is a separate vulnerability and is not a bypass of CVE-2020-8260, but is similar in terms of impact and vulnerability type, which is why we assigned a separate CVE," Daniel Spicer, Invanti's vice president of security, said in a statement to The Hacker News.
The vulnerability is due to a flaw in the way that archive files (.TAR) are extracted in the administrator web interface. While further checks were added to validate the TAR file to prevent exploitation of CVE-2020-8260, additional variant and patch analysis revealed that it's possible to exploit the same extraction vulnerability in the part of the source code that handles profiler device databases, effectively getting around the mitigations put in place.
"Whilst this issue was patched by adding validation to extracted files, this validation does not apply to archives with the 'profiler' type," Warren said. "Therefore, by simply modifying the original CVE-2020-8260 exploit to change the archive type to 'profiler', the patch can be bypassed, and code execution achieved."
It's worth noting that CVE-2020-8260 was one among the four Pulse Secure flaws that was actively exploited by threat actors earlier this April to stage a series of intrusions targeting defense, government, and financial entities in the U.S. and beyond in a bid to circumvent multi-factor authentication protections and breach enterprise networks. Given the possibility of real-world exploitation, it's highly recommended to upgrade to Pulse Connect Secure (PCS) 9.1R12, or later.
"A rigorous code review is just one of the steps we are taking to further bolster our security and protect our customers," Spicer said. "For instance, we are also further expanding our existing internal product security resources to ramp up the pace and intensity of testing on existing products as well as those of companies or systems that we integrate into Ivanti."
| Malware |
GhostDNS: New DNS Changer Botnet Hijacked Over 100,000 Routers | https://thehackernews.com/2018/10/ghostdns-botnet-router-hacking.html | Chinese cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a widespread, ongoing malware campaign that has already hijacked over 100,000 home routers and modified their DNS settings to hack users with malicious web pages—especially if they visit banking sites—and steal their login credentials.
Dubbed GhostDNS, the campaign has many similarities with the infamous DNSChanger malware that works by changing DNS server settings on an infected device, allowing attackers to route the users' internet traffic through malicious servers and steal sensitive data.
According to a new report from cybersecurity firm Qihoo 360's NetLab, just like the regular DNSChanger campaign, GhostDNS scans for the IP addresses for routers that use weak or no password at all, accesses the routers' settings, and then changes the router's default DNS address to the one controlled by the attackers.
GhostDNS System: List of Modules and Sub-Modules
The GhostDNS system mainly includes four modules:
1) DNSChanger Module: This is the main module of GhostDNS designed to exploit targeted routers based upon collected information.
DNSChanger Module is comprised of three sub-modules, which the researchers dubbed, Shell DNSChanger, Js DNSChanger, and PyPhp DNSChanger.
a.) Shell DNSChanger—Written in the Shell programming language, this sub-module combines 25 Shell scripts that can brute-force the passwords on routers or firmware packages from 21 different manufacturers.
b.) Js DNSChanger—Mainly written in JavaScript, this sub-module includes 10 attack scripts designed to infect 6 routers or firmware packages.
"Its functional structure is mainly divided into scanners, payload generators, and attack programs. The Js DNSChanger program is usually injected into phishing websites, so it works together with the Phishing Web System," the researchers say.
c.) PyPhp DNSChanger—Written in both Python and PHP, this submodule contains 69 attack scripts against 47 different routers/firmware and has been found deployed on over 100 servers, most of which on Google Cloud, and includes functionalities like Web API, Scanner and Attack module.
This sub-module is the core module of DNSChanger that allows attackers to scan the Internet to find vulnerable routers.
2) Web Admin module: Though researchers do not have too much information about this module yet, it seems to be an admin panel for attackers secured with a login page.
3) Rogue DNS module: This module is responsible for resolving targeted domain names from the attacker-controlled web servers, which mainly involves banking and cloud hosting services, along with a domain that belongs to a security company named Avira.
"We have no access to the Rouge DNS server, so we can't say for sure how many DNS names have been hijacked, but by querying both Alexa Top1M and our DNSMon's Top1M domains against the rogue DNS server (139.60.162.188), we were able to find a total of 52 domains being hijacked," NetLab researchers say.
4) Phishing Web module: When a targeted domain successfully gets resolved through the rogue DNS module, Phishing web module aims to server the right fake version for that specific website.
GhostDNS Malware Targeting Brazilian Users Primarily
According to the researchers, between September 21 and 27, the GhostDNS campaign compromised more than 100,000 routers, of which 87.8 percent of devices (which equals to 87,800) are located in Brazil only, which means Brazil is the primary target for GhostDNS attackers.
Also Read: VPNFilter Router Malware Adds 7 New Network Exploitation Modules
"Currently the campaign mainly focuses on Brazil, we have counted 100k+ infected router IP addresses (87.8% located in Brazil), and 70+ router/firmware have been involved, and 50+ domain names such as some big banks in brazil , even Netflix, Citibank.br have been hijacked to steal the corresponding website login credentials," the researchers say.
Since the GhostDNS campaign is highly scaled, utilizes different attack vector and adopts automated attack process, it poses a real threat to users. Therefore, users are advised to protect themselves.
How to Protect Your Home Router from Hackers
In order to avoid yourself from being a victim to such attacks, you are recommended to ensure that your router is running the latest version of the firmware and set a strong password for the router web portal.
You can also consider disabling remote administration, changing its default local IP address, and hardcoding a trusted DNS server into your router or the operating system.
NetLab researchers also recommended the router vendors to increase the complexity of router default password and enhance the system security update mechanism for their products.
| Malware |
Russian hackers stole Personal details of 54 million Turkish Citizens | https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/russian-hackers-stole-personal-details.html | The Publicized Hacks, Cyber attacks and Data breaches continue to increase, and the majority of attacks are from outsiders.
Recently, Some unknown Russian hackers have reportedly stolen Personal details of nearly 54 million Turkish citizens, about 70% of the whole Turkish population.
According to a report published by 'Hurriyet News', Researchers from KONDA Security firm revealed that the hackers have stolen data from a political party's vulnerable system that include Name, ID numbers and address of 54 million voters across the Nation.
Researchers claimed that the hacked system (being used for Database and website Management) did not have any antivirus product installed and voter information was also uploaded online on a vulnerable website.
This was really a bad idea, and they mentioned that "in two hours hackers downloaded all the information."
In another statement, they mentioned that some government institutions share citizen's personal data online with other public and private bodies without ensuring the protection of data.
It's tough to accept, but you cannot protect all data. Data breaches will keep striking in 2014 also, but we will never know Where, When and How. Attackers are getting smarter, developing new advanced persistent threats, so Data breaches continue to become increasingly sophisticated.
It is always important to take steps to enable encryption for Data and Devices, educate and aware the end users about the latest threats and basic necessary actions to protect the key data.
| Data_Breaches |
Critical OS X Flaw Grants Mac Keychain Access to Malware | https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/mac-os-x-vulnerability.html | Back in July, a security researcher disclosed a zero-day vulnerability in Mac OS X that allowed attackers to obtain unrestricted root user privileges with the help of code that even fits in a tweet.
The same vulnerability has now been upgraded to again infect Mac OS X machines even after Apple fixed the issue last month.
The privilege-escalation bug was once used to circumvent security protections and gain full control of Mac computers. Thanks to the environment variable DYLD_PRINT_TO_FILE Apple added to the code of OS X 10.10 Yosemite.
The vulnerability then allowed attackers to install malware and adware onto a target Mac, running OS X 10.10 (Yosemite), without requiring victims to enter system passwords.
However, the company fixed the critical issue in the Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan Beta builds as well as the latest stable version of Mac OS X – Version 10.10.5.
Mac Keychain Flaw
Now, security researchers from anti-malware firm MalwareBytes spotted the updated version of the same highly questionable malicious installer is now accessing user's Mac OS X keychain without user's permission.
Once executed, the updated installer throws an installer request that asks for permission to access the user's OS X keychain.
The installer automatically simulates a click on the "Allow" button as soon as it appears, which allows it to gain access to the Safari Extensions List, said MalwareBytes researcher Thomas Reed.
This allows the malicious installer to install a Genieo Safari extension. The entire process of installing a malicious extension and gain access to OS X keychain takes just a fraction of a second.
You're Totally Screwed Up
However, the more worrisome part is that the installer could easily be modified to grant attackers access to other data from the keychain alongside passwords for user's Gmail account, iCloud account, and other important accounts.
Meanwhile, two security researchers from Beirut independently reported the Mac Keychain vulnerability on Tuesday, the same day Malwarebytes researchers disclosed their findings involving Genieo.
The technique works on Mac systems only when invoked by an app already installed on user's systems.
The issue is critical because the Mac keychain is supposedly the protected place for storing account passwords and cryptographic keys.
Apple has yet to respond to this latest issue. Until then, Mac users are advised to follow the standard security practices, such as do not download files from unknown or untrusted sources, and be wary of emails or websites that seem suspicious.
| Malware |
Accidentally invented - Dos attack using Google Spreadsheets | https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/accidentally-invented-dos-attack-using.html | Panos Ipeirotis, a computer scientists working at New York University,attack on his Amazon web service using Google Spreadsheets and Panos Ipeirotis checked his Amazon Web Services bill last week - its was $1,177.76 !
He had accidentally invented a brand new type of internet attack, thanks to an idiosyncrasy in the online spreadsheets Google runs on its Google Docs service, and he had inadvertently trained this attack on himself. He calls it a Denial of Money attack, and he says others could be susceptible too.
On his personal blog Ipeirotis explained that it all started when he saw that Amazon Web Services was charging him with ten times the usual amount because of large amounts of outgoing traffic.
As part of an experiment in how to use crowdsourcing to generate descriptions of images, he had posted thumbnails of 25,000 pictures into a Google document, and then he invited people to describe the images. The problem was that these thumbnails linked back to original images stored on Amazon's S3 storage service, and apparently, Google's servers went slightly bonkers. "Google just very aggressively grabbed the images from Amazon again and again and again," he says.
After analyzing traffic logs he was able to determine that every hour a total of 250 gigabytes of traffic was sent out because of Google's Feedfetcher, the mechanism that allows the search engine to grab RSS or Atom feeds when users add them to Reader or the main page.
After speaking with Google representatives, Ipeirotis believes that the company is trying to balance user privacy with a desire to present fresh content. It seems that Google doesn't want to store the information on its own servers so it uses Feedfetcher to retrieve it every time, thus generating large amounts of traffic.
"Google becomes such a powerful weapon due to a series of perfectly legitimate design decisions," Ipeirotis wrote in a blog posting on the issue.
| Vulnerability |
Oracle releases patches for Java vulnerability CVE-2012-4681 | https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/oracle-releases-patches-for-java.html | Oracle has released a new patch which kills off a vulnerability in Java 7 that was being exploited by malware developers. "Due to the high severity of these vulnerabilities, Oracle recommends that customers apply this Security Alert as soon as possible," Eric Maurice, the company's director of software security assurance.
The out-of-band Security Alert CVE-2012-4681 includes fixes for "three distinct but related vulnerabilities and one security-in-depth issue" affecting Java running within the browser.
Users with vulnerable versions of Java installed can have malware silently planted on their systems just by browsing to a hacked or malicious website unknowingly.Java is a free programming language widely used to enable every day programs and website elements to function, including some games, apps and chat, as well as enterprise apps.
The attacks using this vulnerability so far have been Windows-based, the exploit was demonstrated on other platforms supported by Java 7, including OS X systems where the exploit was successfully run in the latest Safari and Firefox browsers in Mountain Lion.
The Java exploit, originally used for targeted attacks, went public last week and began to spread like wildfire after it was added to the popular BlackHole crimeware kit, making it easily accessible to all types of cybercriminals. The patches are emergency, out-of-schedule updates for Oracle. The company was not planning to release security updates for Java until October.
The Java 7 Update 7 patch can be downloaded from the Java SE Downloads Web page, and Oracle recommends that all users of Java 7 apply the update.
| Vulnerability |
Arrested 'Happy Hacker' is the ZeuS Botnet Mastermind | https://thehackernews.com/2013/01/arrested-happy-hacker-is-zeus-botnet.html | Last week, Happy Hacker arrested in Thailand on charges of stealing millions from online bank accounts. According to new reports same hacker alleged as ZeuS Mastermind and used to have the profile of a miscreant nicknamed "bx1," a hacker fingered by Microsoft before as a major operator of botnets powered by the ZeuS banking trojan.
He remained smiling throughout a press conference in which Thai police explained that Thailand will seek to extradite Mr Bendelladj to the US state of Georgia, where a court has issued a warrant for his arrest.
24-year-old Algerian Hacker , Hamza Bendelladj arrested at a Bangkok airport enroute from Malaysia to Egypt. The ZeuS botnet is one of the most notorious in existence, and it's also one that has earned its masters some pretty massive payouts.
The Email ID's [email protected], and [email protected] mentioned by Microsoft in a complaint submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, appear to be linked to the man.
Mr Bendelladj, who graduated in computer sciences in Algeria in 2008, has allegedly hacked private accounts in 217 banks and financial companies worldwide.
| Malware |
Uber's Android app is Literally Malware? | https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/ubers-android-app-is-literally-malware_28.html | The popular ride-sharing service Uber has been hit by various controversies lately, but now the things gone even worse for the company when a security researcher made a worrying discovery this week and claims, "Uber's app is literally malware."
The ride-hailing company is in disputes of handling privacy of its customers data. A Phoenix-based security researcher Joe Giron found that a surprising amount of users' data is being collected by the company's mobile application for Android.
Researcher, who runs a cyber security firm in Arizona, just reverse-engineered the code of Uber's Android application and come to the conclusion that it is a malware. He discovered that the app "calls home" and sends data back to the company.
But this excessive amount of access to users' data is not the sort of app data a taxi company should have access to in the first place. It really seems strange and unnecessary to collect.
"Christ man! Why the hell would it want access to my camera, my phone calls, my Wi-Fi neighbors, my accounts, etc?" Joe writes in his Security Blog. "Why the hell is this here? What's it sending? Why? Where? I don't remember agreeing to allow Uber accedes to my phone calls and SMS messages. Bad NSA-Uber."
Now one thing strikes in our mind that today a large number of Smartphone applications have access to users' app data, so what's the difference between others and Uber's way of accessing your data??
Here we present you a long list of everything the Uber Android app can have about its users, revealed by a thread on Ycombinator:
Accounts log (Email)
App Activity (Name, PackageName, Process Number of activity, Processed id)
App Data Usage (Cache size, code size, data size, name, package name)
App Install (installed at, name, package name, unknown sources enabled, version code, version name)
Battery (health, level, plugged, present, scale, status, technology, temperature, voltage)
Device Info (board, brand, build version, cell number, device, device type, display, fingerprint, ip, mac address, manufacturer, model, os platform, product, sdk code, total disk space, unknown sources enabled)
GPS (accuracy, altitude, latitude, longitude, provider, speed)
MMS (from number, mms at, mmss type, service number, to number)
NetData (bytes received, bytes sent, connection type, interface type)
PhoneCall (call duration, called at, from number, phone call type, to number)
SMS (from number, service number, sms at, sms type, to number)
TelephonyInfo (cell tower id, cell tower latitude, cell tower longitude, imei, iso country code, local area code, meid, mobile country code, mobile network code, network name, network type, phone type, sim serial number, sim state, subscriber id)
WifiConnection (bssid, ip, linkspeed, macaddr, networkid, rssi, ssid)
WifiNeighbors (bssid, capabilities, frequency, level, ssid)
Root Check (root staus code, root status reason code, root version, sig file version)
Malware Info (algorithm confidence, app list, found malware, malware sdk version, package list, reason code, service list, sigfile version)
"Why the hell would they need this? I know I keep asking questions, but here's some answers: Uber checks to see if your device is rooted. It doesn't tell you of course, it just wants to know so it can phone home and tell them about it. I also saw checks for malware, application activity and a bunch of other stuff," the publication adds.
The ride-driving company might have some legitimate reason to make use of most of this collected information in the app, perhaps for fraud detection or an intelligence-gathering tool. But, the problem is that the information is being sent and collected by Uber's servers without any knowledge or permission of the app user. Neither the extent of the data the Uber app collects seems to go beyond the data set shown on its permissions screen.
Uber responded to the issue and said in a statement to Cult of Mac, "Access to permissions including Wifi networks and camera are included so that users can experience full functionality of the Uber app. This is not unique to Uber, and downloading the Uber app is of course optional."
| Malware |
Experts warn of a new Android banking trojan stealing users' credentials | https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/experts-warn-of-new-android-banking.html | Cybersecurity researchers on Monday disclosed a new Android trojan that hijacks users' credentials and SMS messages to facilitate fraudulent activities against banks in Spain, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
Called "TeaBot" (or Anatsa), the malware is said to be in its early stages of development, with malicious attacks targeting financial apps commencing in late March 2021, followed by a rash of infections in the first week of May against Belgium and Netherlands banks. The first signs of TeaBot activity emerged in January.
"The main goal of TeaBot is stealing victim's credentials and SMS messages for enabling frauds scenarios against a predefined list of banks," Italian cybersecurity and online fraud prevention firm Cleafy said in a Monday write-up. "Once TeaBot is successfully installed in the victim's device, attackers can obtain a live streaming of the device screen (on demand) and also interact with it via Accessibility Services."
The rogue Android application, which masquerades as media and package delivery services like TeaTV, VLC Media Player, DHL, and UPS, acts as a dropper that not only loads a second-stage payload but also forces the victim into granting it accessibility service permissions.
In the last link of the attack chain, TeaBot exploits the access to achieve real-time interaction with the compromised device, enabling the adversary to record keystrokes, in addition to taking screenshots and injecting malicious overlays on top of login screens of banking apps to steal credentials and credit card information.
Other capabilities of TeaBot include disabling Google Play Protect, intercepting SMS messages, and accessing Google Authenticator 2FA codes. The collected information is then exfiltrated every 10 seconds to a remote server controlled by the attacker.
Android malware abusing accessibility services as a stepping stone for perpetrating data theft has witnessed a surge in recent months. Since the start of the year, at least three different malware families — Oscorp, BRATA, and FluBot — have banked on the feature to gain total control of the infected devices.
Interestingly, the fact that TeaBot employs the same decoy as that of Flubot by posing as innocuous shipment apps could be an attempt to mislead attribution and stay under the radar. The heightened FluBot infections prompted Germany and the U.K. to issue alerts last month warning of ongoing attacks via fraudulent SMS messages that trick users into installing "spyware that steals passwords and other sensitive data."
| Malware |
EU sanctions hackers from China, Russia, North Korea who're wanted by the FBI | https://thehackernews.com/2020/07/sanctions-against-wanted-hackers.html | The Council of the European Union has imposed its first-ever sanctions against persons or entities involved in various cyber-attacks targeting European citizens, and its member states.
The directive has been issued against six individuals and three entities responsible for or involved in various cyber-attacks, out of which some publicly known are 'WannaCry', 'NotPetya', and 'Operation Cloud Hopper,' as well as an attempted cyber-attack against the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons.
Out of the six individuals sanctioned by the EU include two Chinese citizens and four Russian nationals. The companies involved in carrying out cyberattacks include an export firm based in North Korea, and technology companies from China and Russia.
The sanctions imposed include a ban on persons traveling to any EU countries and a freeze of assets on persons and entities.
Besides this, EU citizens and entities are also forbidden from doing any business or engaging in transactions with those on the sanction list.
According to the European Council, the detailed of these persons or entities are:
Two Chinese Individuals—Gao Qiang and Zhang Shilong—and a technology firm, named Tianjin Huaying Haitai Science and Technology Development Co. Ltd, for the Operation Cloud Hopper.
The US government has also charged Shilong in 2018 for targeting over 45 companies and government agencies and stealing hundreds of gigabytes of sensitive data from its targets, but the suspect is still at large.
Operation Cloud Hopper was a series of cyber-attacks targeting information systems of multinational companies in six continents, including those located in the EU, and gaining unauthorized access to commercially sensitive data, resulting in economic loss.
Four Russian nationals (also wanted by the FBI) — Alexey Valeryevich, Aleksei Sergeyvich, Evgenii Mikhaylovich, and Oleg Mikhaylovich—for attempting to target the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), in the Netherlands.
A Russian technology firm (exposed by the NSA) — Main Centre for Special Technologies (GTsST) of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation—for the NotPetya ransomware attack in 2017 and the cyber-attacks directed at a Ukrainian power grid in the winter of 2015 and 2016.
A North Korean export firm — Chosun Expo, for the WannaCry ransomware attack that made havoc by disrupting information systems worldwide in 2017 and linked to the well-known Lazarus group.
According to the European Union, the two Chinese nationals who carried out Operation Cloud Hopper are members of the APT10 threat actor group, also known as 'Red Apollo,' 'Stone Panda,' 'MenuPass' and 'Potassium.'
On the other hand, the four Russian nationals were agents of the Russian intelligence agency GRU who once aimed to hack into the Wi-Fi network of the OPCW, which, if successful, would have allowed them to compromise the OPCW's ongoing investigatory work.
"Sanctions are one of the options available in the EU's cyber diplomacy toolbox to prevent, deter and respond to malicious cyber activities directed against the EU or its member states, and today is the first time the EU has used this tool," the Council said.
Last year, the United States also sanctioned the Lazarus group, also known as Hidden Cobra and Guardians of Peace, which has also been associated with several high-profile cyberattacks, including Sony Pictures hack in 2014 and Bangladesh Bank heist in 2016.
| Cyber_Attack |
Malware making bomb and death threats detected | https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/malware-making-bomb-and-death-threats.html | Japanese police had arrested three people, accused them of making death threats via email and discussion forums. However, later Researchers at Symantec have determined that a piece of malware was making death and bomb threats online on behalf of its victims infected.
Symantec confirmed that the malware "Backdoor.Rabasheeta" is capable of controlling a compromised computer from a remote location and the creator has the capability to command the malware to make the threats like bomb and murders. The most curious thing about this particular dropper is that it comes with a graphical user interface (GUI).
The dropper for Backdoor.Rabasheeta drops a main module and a configuration file. The dropper creates a registry entry so that the main module is executed whenever the compromised computer starts. This dropper also modifies CreationTime, LastWriteTime, and LastAccessTime of the main module with random values to help keep it hidden. Then the dropper will execute the main module before removing itself from the computer.
Because some string of characters used to process encrypted communication with the creator is in Japanese, Symantec believe the creator is most likely a person who has a good understanding of the Japanese language.
Symantec has also acquired a third variant of this threat. The version number of this variant is 2.0. It is practically identical to version 2.23 and there are no noticeable differences between the two.
Police are currently investigating the connection between the threats and the malware. The structure and functions of Backdoor.Rabasheeta are not advanced compared to modern malware. However, it is still capable of surreptitiously opening a back door on a compromised computer. To protect against this type of threat, users should use caution when downloading software from unknown sources. Do not click on suspicious links or attachments in emails.
| Malware |
Russian Hacker Behind NeverQuest Banking Malware Gets 4 Years in U.S. Prison | https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/lisov-neverquest-russian-hacker.html | A Russian hacker who created and used Neverquest banking malware to steal money from victims' bank accounts has finally been sentenced to 4 years in prison by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Stanislav Vitaliyevich Lisov, 34, was arrested by Spanish authorities at Barcelona–El Prat Airport in January 2017 on the request of the FBI and extradited to the United States in 2018.
Earlier this year, Lisov pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking, involving attempts to steal at least $4.4 million from hundreds of victims using the NeverQuest banking trojan.
Just like any other sophisticated banking Trojan, NeverQuest, aka Vawtrak or Snifula, has also been designed to let attackers remotely control infected computers and steal a wide range of sensitive information.
Besides stealing login information for banking or other financial accounts using a keylogger or web form injection techniques, the malware was also capable of stealing passwords stored in FTP clients, private keys, or stored within remote-desktop settings.
NeverQuest became so popular among financially motivated hackers and scammers that the banking trojan was ranked the number two global financial malware in 2015 and the number one in 2016.
NeverQuest Caused An Estimated Damage of $4.4 Million
According to a press release published by the U.S. Department of Justice, Lisov and his co-conspirators distributed NeverQuest banking trojan worldwide between June 2012 and January 2015 through social media, phishing emails, and file transfer services; and used exploit kits or drive-by downloads as initial infection vectors.
The duo then used the stolen login information to steal money from victims' bank accounts using various means, including wire transfers, ATM withdrawals, and online purchases of expensive items.
"In total, Lisov and his co-conspirators attempted to steal at least approximately $4.4 million using NeverQuest, and in fact, stole at least approximately $855,000 from their victims' online financial accounts," the court document says.
Besides creating and deploying NeverQuest for his own personal enrichment, Lisov was also responsible for maintaining and renting out botnet servers that contained a list of nearly 1.7 million stolen login credentials—including usernames, passwords, and security questions and answers.
The conspiracy to commit computer hacking charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison under the terms of a plea deal Lisov struck with the Justice Department in February this year when he pleaded guilty.
Today, the United States Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman sentenced Lisov to 48 months in prison.
In addition to his prison term, Lisov has also been sentenced to 3 years of supervised release and ordered to pay a forfeiture of $50,000 and restitution of $481,388.04.
| Cyber_Attack |
Android.Bmaster Exploits root access to connect to Botnet | https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/androidbmaster-exploits-root-access-to.html | Android.Bmaster Exploits root access to connect to Botnet
A new piece of Android malware named Android.Bmaster, first highlighted by researcher Xuxian Jiang at North Carolina State University, was uncovered on a third-party marketplace and is bundled with a legitimate application for configuring phone settings, Symantec researcher Cathal Mullaney wrote in a blog.
This Malware is estimated to affect between 10,000 and 30,000 phones on any given day. The malware, mostly found on Chinese phones, works by using GingerBreak, a tool that gives users root access to Android 2.3 Gingerbread. RootSmart is designed to escape detection by being named "com.google.android.smart," which the same name as a settings app included by default with Android operating systems.
Mullaney explained that once the malware is installed on the Android phone, an outbound connection from the infected phone to a remote server is generated."The malware posts some user and phone-specific data to the remote address and attempts to download and run an APK file from the server. The downloaded file is the second stage in the malware and is a Remote Administration Tool (RAT) for Android, detected as Android.Bmaster. This type of malware is used to remotely control a device by issuing commands from a remote server".
To counter the rising tide of threats, Google last week announced it had launched an app prescreening tool called Bouncer that runs a server-based simulation to check apps for malicious behavior such as attempts to access or send personal data, or simply send out pricey text messages. Google blocks them before they get into the official Android Market.Bouncer has been used quietly for several months; in the second half of 2011, the Android market saw a 40 percent decrease in malware apps identified as potentially malicious, compared to the first half of the year.
Google spokesperson Nancarrow points out that Rootsmart wasn't found in the official Android Market and so falls outside the zone of protection that Google is trying to enforce with its new malware scanner. And the fact that Gingerbreak was already patched, he adds, points to Android's "defense in depth approach, not a reliance on any specific user protection measure."
Get one Best Security Product for your Android from above list, If you really love your Phone, Read Here.
| Malware |
Hacker sold personal data of 4 million US citizens online; risk of potential Identity Theft | https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/hacker-sold-personal-data-of-4-million.html | An illegal service that sells personal data of US citizens online, which can then be used for identity theft hacked into the networks of three major data brokers and Hacker stole their databases.
Cyber attack has given them access to Social Security Numbers, dates of birth, and other personal details that could put all our finances at risk.
Krebs's blog revealed that the service, known as SSNDOB (ssndob.ms) (Social Security Number Date of Birth) used malware to obtain secret access to the databases of LexisNexis, Dun & Bradstreet and Kroll Background America.
Hackers are charging from 50 cents to $2.50 per record and from $5 to $15 for credit and background checks. It was discovered in March that another website, exposed.su was using data collected by SSNDOB to sell to its customers.
Through the use of a botnet Malware, ID thieves the ID thieves gained access to the networks of LexisNexis, that it provides coverage of more than 500 million unique consumer identities.
"The botnet's online dashboard for the LexisNexis systems shows that a tiny unauthorized program called "nbc.exe" was placed on the servers as far back as April 10, 2013, suggesting the intruders have had access to the company's internal networks for at least the past five months," Krebs' report.
"The program was designed to open an encrypted channel of communications from within LexisNexis's internal systems to the botnet controller on the public Internet."
SSNDOB itself was compromised by multiple attacks earlier this year, and website's records show that 1,300 customers have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars looking up SSNs, birthdays, drivers license records, and obtaining unauthorized credit and background reports on more than four million Americans.
Hacker sold personal data of 4 million US citizens online; risk of potential Identity Theft https://t.co/6nwEEe8Pkn #Security
— Wang Wei (王偉) (@security_wang) September 27, 2013
The service's main website at ssndob.ms has been taken offline, but similar services can be found at ssndob.cc and ssndob.biz.
Dun&Bradstreet and Altegrity have said they are investigating the claims. LexisNexis said that it has found no evidence of data theft.
| Malware |
18-Byte ImageMagick Hack Could Have Leaked Images From Yahoo Mail Server | https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/yahoo-imagemagick-hack.html | After the discovery of a critical vulnerability that could have allowed hackers to view private Yahoo Mail images, Yahoo retired the image-processing library ImageMagick.
ImageMagick is an open-source image processing library that lets users resize, scale, crop, watermarking and tweak images. The tool is supported by PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl, C++, and many other programming languages.
This popular image-processing library made headline last year with the discovery of the then-zero-day vulnerability, dubbed ImageTragick, which allowed hackers to execute malicious code on a Web server by uploading a maliciously-crafted image.
Now, just last week, security researcher Chris Evans demonstrated an 18-byte exploit to the public that could be used to cause Yahoo servers to leak other users' private Yahoo! Mail image attachments.
'Yahoobleed' Bug Leaks Images From Server Memory
The exploit abuses a security vulnerability in the ImageMagick library, which Evans dubbed "Yahoobleed #1" (YB1) because the flaw caused the service to bleed contents stored in server memory.
The vulnerability actually exists in the obscure RLE (Utah Raster Toolkit Run Length Encoded) image format.
To exploit the vulnerability, all an attacker need to do is create a maliciously crafted RLE image, and send it to the victim's email address, and then create a loop of empty RLE protocol commands, prompting the leakage of information.
To show how it is possible to compromise a Yahoo email account, Evans, as a proof-of-concept (PoC) demonstration, created a malicious image containing 18-byte exploit code and emailed it as an email attachment to himself.
Once the attachment reached the Yahoo's email servers, ImageMagick processed the image to generate thumbnails and previews, but due to the execution of Evans' exploit code, the library generated a corrupt image preview for the image attachment.
Once this image attachment is clicked, it launched the image preview pane, causing the service to display portions of images that were still present in the server's memory, instead of the original image.
"The resulting JPEG image served to my browser is based on uninitialized, or previously freed, memory content," Evans said.
Unlike Heartbleed and Cloudbleed that were due to out-of-bounds server side memory content leaks, Evans said Yahoobleed makes use of uninitialized or previously freed, memory content.
"The previous bleed vulnerabilities have typically been out-of-bounds reads, but this one is the use of uninitialized memory," Evans said. "An uninitialized image decode buffer is used as the basis for an image rendered back to the client."
"This leaks server-side memory. This type of vulnerability is fairly stealthy compared to an out-of-bounds read because the server will never crash. However, the leaked secrets will be limited to those present in freed heap chunks."
Yahoo Retires 'Buggy' ImageMagick Library
After Evans had submitted his 18-byte exploit code to Yahoo, the company decided to retire the ImageMagick library altogether, rather than fixing the issue.
Evans also warned of another version of Yahoobleed, dubbed Yahoobleed2, which was the due to Yahoo's failure to install a critical patch released in January 2015. He said the flaws combined could allow attackers to obtain browser cookies, authentication tokens, and private images belonging to Yahoo Mail users.
Evans was awarded a bug bounty payment of $14,000 -- $778 per byte for his exploit code -- by the tech giant, who decided to double the bounty to $28,000 after knowing Evans intention to donated his reward to a charity.
After Yahoo has been aware of the issue, Evans reported the vulnerability to the ImageMagick team, who released ImageMagick version 7.0.5-1 two months ago with a fix for the issue.
So, Other widely used Web services using the ImageMagick library are likely still vulnerable to the bug and are advised to apply the patches as soon as possible.
| Vulnerability |
Book Review : Defense against the Black Arts | https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/book-review-defense-against-black-arts.html | Book Review : Defense against the Black Arts
How Hackers Do What They Do and How to Protect against It
Ben Rothke write a review of a new book on hacking "Defense against the Black Arts: How Hackers Do What They Do and How to Protect against It". Authors are Jesse Varsalone, Matthew Mcfadden, Michael Schearer and Sean Morrissey.
"If there ever was a book that should not be judged by its title, Defense against the Black Arts: How Hackers Do What They Do and How to Protect against It, is that book. Even if one uses the definition in The New Hackers Dictionary of 'a collection of arcane, unpublished, and (by implication) mostly ad-hoc techniques developed for a particular application or systems area', that really does not describe this book. The truth is that hacking is none of the above. If anything, it is a process that is far from mysterious, but rather aether to describe. With that, the book does a good job of providing the reader with the information needed to run a large set of hacking tools." Ben's review.
Defense against the Black Arts is another in the line of hacking overview books that started with the first edition of Hacking Exposed. Like Hacking Exposed, the book walks the reader through the process of how to use hacking tools and how to make sense of their output.
Defense against the Black Arts is written for the reader with a good technical background who is looking for a nuts and bolts approach to ethical hacking. Its 14 chapters provide a comprehensive overview of the topic, with an emphasis on Windows.
But for those looking for an introductory text, this is not the best choice out there. The book is written for the reader that needs little hand-holding. This is in part due to its somewhat rough around the edges text and the use of more advanced hacking tools and techniques.
By page 4, the author has the reader downloading BackTrack Linux. BackTrack is a Ubuntu distro which has a focus on digital forensics and penetration testing. BackTrack is currently in a 5 R1 release, based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and Linux kernel 2.6.39.4. BackTrack comes with a significant amount of security and hacking tools preloaded, which the authors reference throughout the book.
After showing how to install BackTrack, chapter 1 shows how to log into Windows without knowing the password. Much of that is around the Kon-Boot tool, which allows you to change the contents of the Windows kernel in order to bypass the administrator password. Tools like Kon-Boot though will only work when you have physical access to the machine.
Chapter 3 gets into the details of digital forensics and highlights a number of popular tools for forensic imaging. While the book provides a good overview of the topic, those looking for the definitive text on the topic should read Digital Evidence and Computer Crime: Forensic Science, Computers and the Internet.
Chapter 5 deals with web application penetration testing. The authors describe a number of tools that can be used to assess the security of web sites, and offer ways to attempts to manipulate data from a web page or web application.
One is likely hard pressed to find a large web site that will be vulnerable to such web attacks, given that most of them have already checked for those errors via validation control testing. Smaller vendors may not be so proactive, and find out that those $99- items are being sold for .99 cents. With that, the chapter details a number of tools developers can use to test for SQL injection, XSS and other types of web vulnerabilities.
Chapter 8 is about capturing network traffic. There are two perspective to collecting traffic. For the attacker, it is about identifying holes and avenues for attack. For those trying to secure a network, collecting network traffic is an exercise in identifying, thwarting and defending the network against attacks.
Chapter 10 provides a brief overview of Metasploit. For those looking for a comprehensive overview of Metasploit, Metasploit: The Penetration Testers Guide is an excellent resource. This chapter like many of the others provides the reader with detailed step-by-step instructions, including screen prints, on how to use the specific tool at hand.
Chapter 11 provides a long list of attack and defense tools that can be used as a larger part of a penetration tester's toolkit.
Chapter 12 is interesting is that it details how social engineering can be used. The authors show how public domain tools like Google Maps can be used in to mount an attack.
Chapter 13 – Hack the Macs– is one of the shorter chapters in the book and should really be longer. One of the reasons pen testers are increasingly using Macs is that the newer Macs run on the Intel platform, and can run and emulate Windows and Linux. The increasing number of tools for the Mac, and significant Mac vulnerabilities, mean that the Mac will increasingly be used and abused in the future.
Just last week, Dr. Mich Kabay wrote in Macintosh Malware Erupts that malware specifically designed for Mac is on the rise. This is based on progressively more and more serious malware for the Mac since 2009 where given that Apple products have been increasing their market share for laptops and workstations but especially for tablets and phones.
The article notes that one of the reasons Mac OS X is perceived as superior to Windows is because of its appearance of having integrated security. But although the design may be sound, the operating system does not prevent people from being swayed into thinking that the malicious software they are downloading is safe. With that, Apple will have to concentrate more on security and vulnerability within their operating system.
The book ends with about 30 pages on wireless hacking. The chapter provides an overview of some of the weaknesses in Wi-Fi technology and how they can be exploited. The chapter focuses on the airmon tool, part of BackTrack that you can use to set your wireless adapter into monitor mode, to see all of the traffic traversing the wireless network.
Overall, Defense against the Black Arts: How Hackers Do What They Do and How to Protect against It is a really good reference for someone experienced in the topic who wants to improve their expertise.
You can purchase Defense against the Black Arts: How Hackers Do What They Do and How to Protect against It from amazon.com
[Submitted by Jesse Varsalone | Cross Post from Slashdot]
| Malware |
A Google Drive 'Feature' Could Let Attackers Trick You Into Installing Malware | https://thehackernews.com/2020/08/google-drive-file-versions.html | An unpatched security weakness in Google Drive could be exploited by malware attackers to distribute malicious files disguised as legitimate documents or images, enabling bad actors to perform spear-phishing attacks comparatively with a high success rate.
The latest security issue—of which Google is aware but, unfortunately, left unpatched—resides in the "manage versions" functionality offered by Google Drive that allows users to upload and manage different versions of a file, as well as in the way its interface provides a new version of the files to the users.
Logically, the manage versions functionally should allow Google Drive users to update an older version of a file with a new version having the same file extension, but it turns out that it's not the case.
According to A. Nikoci, a system administrator by profession who reported the flaw to Google and later disclosed it to The Hacker News, the affected functionally allows users to upload a new version with any file extension for any existing file on the cloud storage, even with a malicious executable.
As shown in the demo videos—which Nikoci shared exclusively with The Hacker News—in doing so, a legitimate version of the file that's already been shared among a group of users can be replaced by a malicious file, which when previewed online doesn't indicate newly made changes or raise any alarm, but when downloaded can be employed to infect targeted systems.
"Google lets you change the file version without checking if it's the same type," Nikoci said. "They did not even force the same extension."
Needless to say, the issue leaves the door open for highly effective spear-phishing campaigns that take advantage of the widespread prevalence of cloud services such as Google Drive to distribute malware.
The development comes as Google recently fixed a security flaw in Gmail that could have allowed a threat actor to send spoofed emails mimicking any Gmail or G Suite customer, even when strict DMARC/SPF security policies are enabled.
Malware Hackers Love Google Drive
Spear-phishing scams typically attempt to trick recipients into opening malicious attachments or clicking seemingly innocuous links, thereby providing confidential information, like account credentials, to the attacker in the process.
The links and attachments can also be used to get the recipient to unknowingly download malware that can give the attacker access to the user's computer system and other sensitive information.
This new security issue is no different. Google Drive's file update feature is meant to be an easy way to update shared files, including the ability to replace the document with a completely new version from the system. This way, the shared file can be updated without changing its link.
However, without any validation for file extensions, this can have potentially serious consequences when users of the shared file, who, upon notification of the change via an email, end up downloading the document and unwittingly infecting their systems with malware.
Such a scenario could be leveraged to mount whaling attacks, a phishing tactic often used by cyber-criminal gangs to masquerade as senior management personnel in an organization and target specific individuals, hoping to steal sensitive information or gain access to their computer systems for criminal purposes.
Even worse, Google Chrome appears to implicitly trust the files downloaded from Google Drive even when they are detected by other antivirus software as malicious.
Cloud Services Become An Attack Vector
Although there's no evidence that this flaw has been exploited in the wild, it wouldn't be difficult for attackers to repurpose it for their benefit given how cloud services have been a vehicle for malware delivery in several spear-phishing attacks in recent months.
Earlier this year, Zscaler identified a phishing campaign that employed Google Drive to download a password stealer post initial compromise.
Last month, Check Point Research and Cofense highlighted a series of new campaigns wherein threat actors were found not only using spam emails to embed malware hosted on services like Dropbox and Google Drive but also exploiting cloud storage services to host phishing pages.
ESET, in an analysis of the Evilnum APT group, observed a similar trend where fintech companies in Europe and the UK have been targeted with spear-phishing emails that contain a link to a ZIP file hosted on Google Drive to steal software licenses, customer credit card information, and investments and trading documents.
Likewise, Fortinet, in a campaign spotted earlier this month, uncovered evidence of a COVID-19-themed phishing lure that purportedly warned users of delayed payments due to the pandemic, only to download the NetWire remote access Trojan hosted on a Google Drive URL.
With scammers and criminals pulling out all the stops to conceal their malicious intentions, it's essential that users keep a close eye on suspicious emails, including Google Drive notifications, to mitigate any possible risk.
| Cyber_Attack |
First ever Malware for Firefox Mobile OS developed by Researcher | https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/exclusive-security-researcher-developed.html | Firefox OS is a mobile operating system based on Linux and Mozilla's Gecko technology, whose environment is dedicated to apps created with just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
After almost two years of development, a few months back Mozilla officially launched their Firefox OS devices in stores and now the first Malware for the brand new platform is available.
Shantanu Gawde, 17-years-old, an Independent Security Researcher is going to demonstrate the very first known malware for Firefox OS at the upcoming Information Security Summit - The Ground Zero (G0S) 2013, to be held on November 7th - 10th, 2013 at The Ashok, New Delhi.
Firefox OS is different - Every app in Firefox OS including the Camera and the Dialer is a web app, i.e. a website in the form of an app. Simple! Mozilla has developed Web APIs so that HTML5 apps can communicate with the device's hardware and Shantanu has used the same APIs intentionally to exploit the device for malicious purpose.
Basically, there are two types of Firefox OS apps: packaged and hosted. Packed apps are essentially a zip file containing all of of an apps assets: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, manifest, etc.
Hosted apps are just a website is the application, means you can host the app on a publicly accessible Web server, just like any other website.
His demonstration will showcase the malware app developed by him using just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and capability to perform many malicious tasks remotely on the device i.e. Accessing SD Card Data, Stealing Contacts, downloading-uploading Files on device, Tracking Geological location of the user etc.
"The purpose of the PoC is of course to motivate developers to ensure better security on their platforms rather than providing inspiration to those with malicious intents." he told 'The Hacker News'.
The rapid growth and evolution of mobile malware is swiftly becoming a highly profitable business for cybercriminals. According to the third annual Mobile Threats Report from Juniper Networks, mobile malware threats have grown a huge 614% in the period March 2012 to March 2013.
With mobile malware on the rise and attackers becoming increasingly clever and they are also targeting every possible new platform. Make sure you will be at Ground Zero this year to see live threat to one of the prominent upcoming mobile operating systems.
Update : A Mozilla spokesperson provided the following statement: "We are aware of plans to demonstrate a malware app able to perform malicious tasks on the Firefox OS phone. Such attacks usually rely on developer mode functionality, which is common to most Smartphones but disabled by default. In addition, we believe this demonstration requires the phone to be physically connected to a computer controlled by the attacker, and unlocked by the user."
| Malware |
How to Mitigate Microsoft Windows 10, 11 SeriousSAM Vulnerability | https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/how-to-mitigate-microsoft-windows-10-11.html | Microsoft Windows 10 and Windows 11 users are at risk of a new unpatched vulnerability that was recently disclosed publicly.
As we reported last week, the vulnerability — SeriousSAM — allows attackers with low-level permissions to access Windows system files to perform a Pass-the-Hash (and potentially Silver Ticket) attack.
Attackers can exploit this vulnerability to obtain hashed passwords stored in the Security Account Manager (SAM) and Registry, and ultimately run arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges.
SeriousSAM vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2021-36934, exists in the default configuration of Windows 10 and Windows 11, specifically due to a setting that allows 'read' permissions to the built-in user's group that contains all local users.
As a result, built-in local users have access to read the SAM files and the Registry, where they can also view the hashes. Once the attacker has 'User' access, they can use a tool such as Mimikatz to gain access to the Registry or SAM, steal the hashes and convert them to passwords. Invading Domain users that way will give attackers elevated privileges on the network.
Because there is no official patch available yet from Microsoft, the best way to protect your environment from SeriousSAM vulnerability is to implement hardening measures.
Mitigating SeriousSAM
According to Dvir Goren, CTO at CalCom, there are three optional hardening measures:
Delete all users from the built-in users' group — this is a good place to start from, but won't protect you if Administrator credentials are stolen.
Restrict SAM files and Registry permissions — allow access only for Administrators. This will, again, only solve part of the problem, as if an attacker steals Admin credentials, you will still be vulnerable to this vulnerability.
Don't allow the storage of passwords and credentials for network authentication — this rule is also recommended in the CIS benchmarks. By implementing this rule, there will be no hash stored in the SAM or registry, thereby mitigating this vulnerability completely.
When using GPOs for implementation, make sure the following UI Path is Enabled:
Computer Configuration\Policies\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options\Network access: Do not allow storage of passwords and credentials for network authentication
Despite the fact that the last recommendation offers a good solution for SeriousSAM, it may negatively impact your production if not properly tested before it is pushed. When this setting is enabled, applications that use scheduled tasks and need to store users' hashes locally will fail.
Mitigating SeriousSAM without risking causing damage to production
The following are Dvir's recommendations for mitigating without causing downtime:
Set up a test environment that will simulate your production environment. Simulate all possible dependencies of your network as accurately as you can.
Analyze the impact of this rule on your test environment. In this way, if you have applications that rely on hashes that are stored locally, you'll know in advance and prevent production downtime.
Push the policy where possible. Make sure new machines are also hardened and that the configuration doesn't drift over time.
These three tasks are complex and require a lot of resources and in-house expertise. Therefore, Dvir's final recommendation is to automate the entire hardening process to save the need to perform stages 1, 2 and 3.
Here is what you will gain from a Hardening Automation Tool:
Automatically generate the most accurate possible impact analysis report – hardening automation tools 'learns' your production dependencies and report to you the potential impact of each policy rule.
Automatically enforce your policy on your entire production from a single point of control – using these tools, you won't need to do manual work, such as using GPOs. You can control and be certain all your machines are hardened.
Maintain your compliance posture and monitor your machines in real-time – hardening automation tools will monitor your compliance posture, alert and remediate any unauthorized changes in configurations, therefore preventing configuration drifts.
Hardening automation tools will learn the dependencies directly from your network and automatically generate an accurate impact analysis report. A hardening automation tool will also help you orchestrate the implementation and monitoring process.
| Vulnerability |
Apple's own Encryption Mechanism allows hacker to create an Undetectable Mac OS X Malware | https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/apples-own-encryption-mechanism-allows.html | In the past, there was a general belief that Macs is much more secure than Windows PCs, but now Mac malware is a serious threat to the security of users' computers and information.
One of the reasons behind the increase in Mac related Malware attacks is the fact that Apple products are popular with many prominent businessmen and influential politicians.
Daniel Pistelli, Reverse Engineer and lead developer of Cerbero Profiler, former developer of IDA Pro comes up with another interesting research, and explained The Hacker News, the basic details behind the technique he used to create an undetectable malware for Mac OS X.
Apple implements internally an encryption mechanism to protect some of their own executable like "Dock.app" or "Finder.app". This encryption can be applied to malware as well. If one does, anti-malware solutions can no longer detect the malware because of the encryption, but OS X has no problem loading such malware.
This same protection mechanism can be used on existing malwares that are already detected by Anti-malware products, to make them completely undetectable. Those same anti-malware products can no longer detect the malware because they don't understand it's encrypted.
Currently, it's true that there are fewer malware programs that are targeting Mac OS X versus Windows. However, that doesn't mean that Macs are totally secure.
To mitigate this problem Daniel suggests Anti-Malware product makers to either support the actual decryption , alternatively, to trust encrypted executables only when signed by Apple. Read complete technical details about the method on Daniel's Blog.
The events of recent years have led many users to question just how secure Mac really is.
| Malware |
First-Ever Data Stealing Malware Found Using Intel AMT Tool to Bypass Firewall | https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/intel-amt-firewall-bypass.html | It's not hard for a well-funded state-sponsored hacking group to break into corporate networks and compromise systems with malware, but what's challenging for them is to keep that backdoor and its communication undetectable from a firewall and other network monitoring applications.
However, a cyber-espionage group known as "Platinum," that is actively targeting governmental organisations, defense institutes, and telecommunication providers since at least 2009, has found a way to hide its malicious activities from host-based protection mechanisms.
Microsoft has recently discovered that the cyber-espionage group is now leveraging Intel's Active Management Technology (AMT) Serial-over-LAN (SOL) channel as a file-transfer tool to steal data from the targeted computers without detection.
Intel-based chip sets come with an embedded technology, called AMT, which is designed to allow IT administrators to remotely manage and repair PCs, workstations, and servers of their organisations.
The Intel AMT technology operates independently of the operating system and works even when the system is turned off, as long as the platform is connected to a line power and a network cable.
That means, when AMT is enabled, any packet sent to the PC's wired network port will be redirected to the Management Engine and passed on to AMT – the operating system, as well as network monitoring applications installed on a system, never knows what's going around.
Moreover, Linux systems with Intel's chips and AMT enabled may also be exposed to Platinum's malware.
"As this embedded processor is separate from the primary Intel processor, it can execute even when the main processor is powered off and is, therefore, able to provide out-of-band (OOB) remote administration capabilities such as remote power-cycling and keyboard, video, and mouse control (KVM)," Microsoft said.
"Furthermore, as the SOL traffic bypasses the host networking stack, it cannot be blocked by firewall applications running on the host device. To enable SOL functionality, the device AMT must be provisioned."
Unlike the remote authentication flaw discovered last month that enabled hackers to take over full control of a system by using AMT features without the need of any password, Platinum does not exploit any flaw in AMT, instead, requires AMT to be enabled on infected systems.
Microsoft notes that SOL session requires a username and password, so either the hacking group is using stolen credentials to make its malware remotely communicate with the C&C servers, or "during the provisioning process, PLATINUM could select whichever username and password they wish."
The Platinum hacking group has been using zero-day exploits, hot patching technique and other advanced tactics to penetrate in their target systems and networks in South Asian countries, but this is the first time someone is abusing legitimate management tools to evade detection.
Microsoft said it has already updated its own Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection software that will alert network administrators of any malicious attempts at using AMT SOL, but only for systems running Windows operating system.
| Cyber_Attack |
Hackers Use New Flash Zero-Day Exploit to Distribute FinFisher Spyware | https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/flash-player-zero-day.html | FinSpy—the infamous surveillance malware is back and infecting high-profile targets using a new Adobe Flash zero-day exploit delivered through Microsoft Office documents.
Security researchers from Kaspersky Labs have discovered a new zero-day remote code execution vulnerability in Adobe Flash, which was being actively exploited in the wild by a group of advanced persistent threat actors, known as BlackOasis.
The critical type confusion vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2017-11292, could lead to code execution and affects Flash Player 21.0.0.226 for major operating systems including Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Chrome OS.
Researchers say BlackOasis is the same group of attackers which were also responsible for exploiting another zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2017-8759) discovered by FireEye researchers in September 2017.
Also, the final FinSpy payload in the current attacks exploiting Flash zero-day (CVE-2017-11292) shares the same command and control (C&C) server as the payload used with CVE-2017-8759 (which is Windows .NET Framework remote code execution).
So far BlackOasis has targeted victims in various countries including Russia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Libya, Jordan, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Netherlands, Bahrain, United Kingdom and Angola.
The newly reported Flash zero-day exploit is at least the 5th zero-day that BlackOasis group exploited since June 2015.
The zero-day exploit is delivered through Microsoft Office documents, particularly Word, attached to a spam email, and embedded within the Word file includes an ActiveX object which contains the Flash exploit.
The exploit deploys the FinSpy commercial malware as the attack's final payload.
"The Flash object contains an ActionScript which is responsible for extracting the exploit using a custom packer seen in other FinSpy exploits," the Kaspersky Labs researchers say.
FinSpy is a highly secret surveillance tool that has previously been associated with Gamma Group, a British company that legally sells surveillance and espionage software to government agencies across the world.
FinSpy, also known as FinFisher, has extensive spying capabilities on an infected system, including secretly conducting live surveillance by turning ON its webcams and microphones, recording everything the victim types on the keyboard, intercepting Skype calls, and exfiltration of files.
To get into a target's system, FinSpy usually makes use of various attack vectors, including spear phishing, manual installation with physical access to the affected device, zero-day exploits, and watering hole attacks.
"The attack using the recently discovered zero-day exploit is the third time this year we have seen FinSpy distribution through exploits to zero-day vulnerabilities," said Anton Ivanov, lead malware analyst at Kaspersky Lab.
"Previously, actors deploying this malware abused critical issues in Microsoft Word and Adobe products. We believe the number of attacks relying on FinSpy software, supported by zero day exploits such as the one described here, will continue to grow."
Kaspersky Lab reported the vulnerability to Adobe, and the company has addressed the vulnerability with the release of Adobe Flash Player versions 27.0.0.159 and 27.0.0.130.
Just last month, ESET researchers discovered legitimate downloads of several popular apps like WhatsApp, Skype, VLC Player and WinRAR (reportedly compromised at the ISP level) that were also distributing FinSpy.
So, businesses and government organizations around the world are strongly recommended to install the update from Adobe as soon as possible.
Microsoft will also likely be releasing a security update to patch the Flash Player components used by its products.
| Cyber_Attack |
Persistent XSS Vulnerability in White House Website | https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/persistent-xss-vulnerability-in-white.html | Persistent XSS Vulnerability in White House Website
Alexander Fuchs, A German Security Researcher Discover Persistent XSS Vulnerability in Official website of White House. He said "The petition system is vulnerable. Every Petition i start or join will execute my code. I could join all petitions and my code will be executed on all users who visit the petition system."
The XSS Demo is here: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/security/WxgwM7DS
Advisory: https://vulnerability-lab.com/get_content.php?id=308
| Vulnerability |
Popular Online Tutoring Marketplace 'Wyzant' Suffers Data Breach | https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/wyzant-data-breach.html | Wyzant—an online marketplace that makes it easy for parents and students to connect with private tutors, in-person and online, in over 250 different subjects—has suffered a data breach exposing "certain personal identification information" for its customers.
The Hacker News received a copy of an email notification Wyzant recently sent to its affected customers, which reveals an unknown attacker was able to gain access to one of its databases on April 27, which the company identified a week after the security incident.
The stolen personal identification information for affected customers includes their first name, last name, email address, zip code, and, for certain customers, their Facebook profile image as well who log-in to the platform using Facebook.
Wyzant also explicitly made it clear that the stolen data did not include any password, payment information, or record of its customers' activity on the Wyzant platform, and that no other than the above-mentioned data was known to have been accessed.
Though it is still unclear how many customers were actually hit by the security breach, or if both tutors and students are affected, or what security hole the unknown attackers exploited to get into the company's network, the company did confirm that it has now patched the underlying issue.
With more than 2 million registered users and over 76,000 active tutors in its database, Wyzant is a decade-old popular tutoring service that bring students and instructors together, online and in-person.
In response to the security incident, Wyzant says it is performing an extensive audit of its entire network and application security infrastructure and will notify its customers of any significant development.
"Wyzant has implemented additional security measures designed to prevent a recurrence of such an attack and to protect the privacy of our valued customers," the company says.
"This includes reviewing our security processes and protocols. We are also working closely with law enforcement to ensure the incident is properly addressed."
For affected customers, Wyzant also warned them to beware of potential phishing attacks wherein attackers could use their personal information to trick them into providing additional personal information, such as credit card information or passwords.
The Hacker News has reached out to the company to know more about the data breach incident and will update this article as soon as we'll hear back from it.
| Data_Breaches |
Adobe issues Emergency Flash Player update to patch critical zero-day threat | https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/adobe-issues-emergency-flash-player.html | Adobe is recommending that users update their Flash Players immediately. The company has published an emergency security bulletin today, that addresses vulnerabilities the Flash Player and released a patch to fix a vulnerability which is currently being exploited in a sophisticated cyber espionage campaign.
"Adobe is aware of reports that an exploit for this vulnerability exists in the wild, and recommends users apply the updates referenced in the security bulletin."
The vulnerability (CVE-2014-0497), allows an attacker to remotely take control of the targeted system hosting Flash. "These updates address a critical vulnerability that could potentially allow an attacker to remotely take control of the affected system" advisory said.
The security hole affects the version 12.0.0.43 and earlier for both Windows and Mac OSs and Adobe Flash Player 11.2.202.335 and earlier versions for Linux.
The vulnerability was discovered by two researchers at Kaspersky Lab, Alexander Polyakov and Anton Ivanov.
The story started some month ago, when the Kaspersky Team discovered a new sophisticated cyber espionage operation which has been going on at least since 2007. The operation dubbed "The Mask" hit systems in 27 countries leveraging high-end exploits, the attackers adopted an extremely sophisticated malware which includes a bootkit and rootkit.
The malicious code used is able to infect also Mac and Linux versions and included a customized attack against Kaspersky products.
"This is putting them above Duqu in terms of sophistication, making it one of the most advanced threats at the moment. Most interesting, the authors appear to be native in yet another language which has been observed very rarely in APT attacks. We will present more details about the "Mask" APT next week at the Kaspersky Security Analyst Summit 2014 (on Twitter, #TheSAS2014). " Reports a post on SecureList blog.
Kaspersky Lab provides technical analysis of the exploits and payload. They discovered a total of 11 exploits, using same vulnerability and all are unpacked SWF files in the following versions of Adobe Flash Player:
11.3.372.94
11.3.375.10
11.3.376.12
11.3.377.15
11.3.378.5
11.3.379.14
11.6.602.167
11.6.602.180
11.7.700.169
11.7.700.202
11.7.700.224
These exploits only work with Windows XP, Vista, 2003 R2, 2003, Windows 7, Windows 7x64, Windows 2008 R2, Windows 2008, 8, Windows 8x6, Mac OS 10.6.8.
Researchers discovered that these exploits had been detected on three different user machines, one of which worked under Mac OS 10.6.8 and the other two under Windows 7. They found that .docx document with the 0-day exploit was distributed via a targeted email mailing.
There are total three types of Shellcode:
First one is a primitive shellcode that reads an executable named a.exe from an SWF file and drops it to the hard drive. Only one of the 11 exploits in our possession included a payload.
The second type downloads and executes a file from a URL passed in the SWF file's parameters. The third shellcode type, which is only present in some of the files, is the most interesting.
Adobe was informed of the availability of an exploit in the wild used to hit systems running the Flash Player, it recommends users update product installations to the latest versions:
Users of Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.43 and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh should update to Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.44.
Users of Adobe Flash Player 11.2.202.335 and earlier versions for Linux should update to Adobe Flash Player 11.2.202.336.
Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.41 installed with Google Chrome will automatically be updated to the latest Google Chrome version, which will include Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.44 for Windows, Macintosh and Linux.
Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.38 installed with Internet Explorer 10 will automatically be updated to the latest Internet Explorer 10 version, which will include Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.44 for Windows 8.0.
Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.38 installed with Internet Explorer 11 will automatically be updated to the latest Internet Explorer 11 version, which will include Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.44 for Windows 8.1.
Adobe flash player download
| Malware |
No More Ransom — 15 New Ransomware Decryption Tools Available for Free | https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/decrypt-ransomware-files-tool.html | No More Ransom, so is the Ransomware Threat.
Launched less than a year ago, the No More Ransom (NMR) project has increased its capacity with new partners and new decryption tools added to its now global campaign to combat Ransomware.
Started as a joint initiative by Europol, the Dutch National Police, Intel Security and Kaspersky Lab, No More Ransom is an anti-ransomware cross-industry initiative to help ransomware victims recover their data without having to pay ransom to cyber criminals.
The online website not just educates computer users to protect themselves from ransomware, but also provides a collection of free decryption tools.
Since December, more than 10,000 victims from all over the world have been able to decrypt their locked up devices without spending a penny, using ransomware decryption tools available free of charge on this platform.
Statistics show that most of the website visitors were from Russia, the Netherlands, the U.S., Italy, and Germany.
The platform is now available in 14 languages and hosts 40 free decryption tools, supplied by a range of member organizations, which can be used by users to decrypt their files which have been locked up by given strains of ransomware.
No More Ransom initiative has been joined by thirty new organizations, including Avast, CERT Polska and Eleven Paths (the Telefonica Cyber Security Unit), which shows that the threat is a worldwide issue that needs to be fought together.
The initiative has also welcomed new law enforcement organizations from Interpol, Australia, Belgium, Israel, South Korea, Russia, and Ukraine.
Since December 2016, 15 new ransomware decryption tools have been added to the online portal by partner organizations, offering more decryption possibilities to the victims:
AVAST: Alcatraz Decryptor, Bart Decryptor, Crypt888 Decryptor, HiddenTear Decryptor, Noobcrypt Decryptor and Cryptomix Decryptor
Bitdefender: Bart Decryptor CERT Polska: Cryptomix/Cryptoshield decryptor
CheckPoint: Merry X-Mas Decryptor and BarRax Decryptor
Eleven Paths: Telefonica Cyber Security Unit: Popcorn Decryptor.
Emsisoft: Crypton Decryptor and Damage Decryptor.
Kaspersky Lab: Updates on Rakhni and Rannoh Decryptors.
Previously available in English, Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese and Russian, the No More Ransom site has now added new languages including Finnish, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Slovenian, Spanish and Ukrainian.
More languages are also expected to be made available soon to assist victims across the world better.
| Malware |
Google Discloses 20-Year-Old Unpatched Flaw Affecting All Versions of Windows | https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/ctfmon-windows-vulnerabilities.html | Update — With this month's patch Tuesday updates, Microsoft has finally addressed this vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-1162, by correcting how the Windows operating system handles calls to Advanced Local Procedure Call (ALPC).
A Google security researcher has just disclosed details of a 20-year-old unpatched high-severity vulnerability affecting all versions of Microsoft Windows, back from Windows XP to the latest Windows 10.
The vulnerability resides in the way MSCTF clients and server communicate with each other, allowing even a low privileged or a sandboxed application to read and write data to a higher privileged application.
MSCTF is a module in Text Services Framework (TSF) of the Windows operating system that manages things like input methods, keyboard layouts, text processing, and speech recognition.
In a nutshell, when you log in to your Windows machine, it starts a CTF monitor service that works as a central manager to handle communications between all clients, which are actually windows for each process running on the same session, through an ALPC (advanced local procedure call) port.
"You might have noticed the ctfmon service in task manager, it is responsible for notifying applications about changes in keyboard layout or input methods. The kernel forces applications to connect to the ctfmon service when they start, and then exchange messages with other clients and receive notifications from the service," the researcher explained.
Tavis Ormandy from Google's Project Zero Team discovered that since there is no access control or any kind of authentication in place for this interaction, any application, any user and even sandboxed processes can:
connect to ctfmon ALPC port across all sessions,
read and write the text of any window, from any other session,
fake their thread id, process id, and HWND,
pretend as a CTF service, tricking other applications, even privileged ones, to connect to it, or
escape from sandboxes and escalate privileges.
"There is no access control in CTF, so you could connect to another user's active session and take over any application, or wait for an Administrator to login and compromise their session," Ormandy explains in a blog post published today.
"It turns out it was possible to reach across sessions and violate NT security boundaries for nearly twenty years, and nobody noticed."
If exploited, the weakness in CTF protocol could allow attackers to easily bypass User Interface Privilege Isolation (UIPI), letting even an unprivileged process to:
read sensitive text from any window of other applications, including passwords out of dialog boxes,
gain SYSTEM privileges,
take control of the UAC consent dialog,
send commands to the administrator's console session, or
escape IL/AppContainer sandboxes by sending input to unsandboxed windows.
Ormandy has also published a proof-of-concept video demonstrating how the issue can be exploited to gain SYSTEM privileges in Windows 10.
Besides this, CTF protocol reportedly also contain many memory corruption flaws that, according to the researcher, can be exploited in a default configuration.
"Even without bugs, the CTF protocol allows applications to exchange input and read each other's content. However, there are a lot of protocol bugs that allow taking complete control of almost any other application. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft decides to modernize the protocol," Ormandy says.
The researcher has also released a custom open-source "CTF Exploration Tool" on Github that he developed and used to discover many critical security issues in the Windows CTF protocol.
Ormandy responsibly reported his findings to Microsoft in mid-May this year and released the details to the public today after Microsoft failed to address the issue within 90 days of being notified.
| Vulnerability |
Zerodium Offers $100,000 for Flash Zero-Day Exploit that Bypasses Mitigations | https://thehackernews.com/2016/01/flash-heap-isolation-exploit.html | A well-known company popular for buying and selling zero-day vulnerabilities is now offering up to $100,000 for providing a working zero-day exploit for bypassing the Flash Player's Heap Isolation mitigation.
Few months back, Adobe deployed Heap Isolation in Flash version 18.0.0209 with an aim at making the Use-After-Free (UAF) vulnerabilities more difficult for cybercriminals to exploit.
Zerodium is a startup by the infamous French-based company Vupen that Buys and Sells zero-day exploits and vulnerabilities.
Zerodium, which describes itself as "the premium zero-day acquisition platform," recently paid $1 Million bounty to a hacker for submitting a remote browser-based iOS 9.1/9.2b Jailbreak (untethered) Exploit.
What is "Isolated Heap" Mitigation Technique?
The use-after-free vulnerability is a type of memory corruption flaw that can be exploited by Hackers to execute arbitrary code or even allows full remote code execution capabilities.
Isolated Heap mitigation mechanism is designed to solve the usage issue of Use-After-Free (UAF) exploitation.
This Mitigation technique allocates a dedicated heap for selected critical objects to use, which is separate from other heaps that a user can directly access.
Isolated Heap prevents precise control of the data, thus eliminates the hacker's ability to corrupt memory in this way.
Here's The Target to Win $100,000
Today, Zerodium posted a tweet announcing that the company is offering:
$100,000 this month for an exploit that bypasses heap isolation of Flash Player with a sandbox escape.
$65,000 for an exploit that bypasses heap isolation of Flash Player without a sandbox escape.
Now, let's wait and watch who will win this competition, or I can say that who will be going to sell a new zero-day exploit to the company which is infamous for re-selling them further.
And If you really want to get rid of such nasty zero-day exploits, you are advised to simply disable or completely uninstall Adobe Flash Player immediately. Stay Tuned to our Facebook Page for latest Hacker News stories.
| Vulnerability |
Internet Explorer flaw allows Hackers to Track your Mouse | https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/internet-explorer-flaw-allows-hackers.html | A vulnerability in different versions of Microsoft's widely used browser Internet Explorer can allow hackers to track the movements of your mouse. Microsoft is investigating reports of a mouse-tracking flaw that puts virtual keyboards and keypads at risk to remote monitoring.
Spider.io, a UK-based company in the advertising analytics field, alleged that two unnamed companies are improperly using a flaw that allows them to track whether display advertisements, sometimes buried far down in web pages, are actually viewed by users.
Almost every US-based user of Internet Explorer will have their mouse cursor tracked via this exploit almost every day they browse the web. Microsoft has confirmed that every version of Internet Explorer, from version 6 dating back to 2001 up to 10, released this year, is vulnerable.
How this works ?
All a hacker needs to do is, buy a ad space on any webpage and wait until a user visits it. If the tab remains open, the hacker has continuous access to user's mouse movements. Cyber Criminals could use the technique for monitoring mouse movements used to log into sensitive websites with virtual keyboards on-screen keyboards similar to those on smartphones, they could work out a credit card number and other personal details.
Whereas Microsoft said, They have also stated that there are no immediate plans to patch this vulnerability in existing versions of the browser.
What More with Microsoft this weekend ?
Yesterday two Security researchers from 'The Hacker News' disclose serious vulnerability in Hotmail and Outlook that can allow an attacker to Hijack user accounts.
| Vulnerability |
A Look Into Continuous Efforts By Chinese Hackers to Target Foreign Governments | https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/chinese-hackers-phishing.html | Phishing is still one of the widely used strategies by cybercriminals and espionage groups to gain an initial foothold on the targeted systems.
Though hacking someone with phishing attacks was easy a decade ago, the evolution of threat detection technologies and cyber awareness among people has slowed down the success of phishing and social engineering attacks over the years.
Since phishing is more sort of a one-time opportunity for hackers before their victims suspect it and likely won't fall for the same trick again, sophisticated hacking groups have started putting a lot of effort, time and research to design well-crafted phishing campaigns.
In one such latest campaign discovered by cybersecurity researchers at Check Point, a Chinese hacking group, known as Rancor, has been found conducting very targeted and extensive attacks against Southeast Asian government entities from December 2018 to June 2019.
What's interesting about this ongoing 7-month long campaign is that over this period, the Rancor group has continuously updated tactics, tools, and procedures (TTP) based on its targets in an effort to come up with phishing email contents and lure documents appear being as convincing as possible.
"The observed attacks started with emails sent on behalf of employees from different government departments, embassies, or government-related entities in a Southeast Asian country," reads a report published by CheckPoint and privately shared with The Hacker News prior to its release.
"The attackers appeared determined to reach certain targets, as tens of emails were sent to employees under the same ministries. Furthermore, the emails' origin was likely spoofed to make them seem more reliable."
Continuously Evolving Tactics, Tools, and Procedures
Researchers discovered different combinations of TTP based on their timeline, delivery, persistence, and payloads, and then combined them into 8 major variants, as listed below in this article.
Each attack variant started with a classic spear-phishing email containing a malicious document designed to run macros and exploit known vulnerabilities to install a backdoor on the victims' machines and gain full access to the systems.
Most of the delivery documents in this campaign contained legitimate government-related topics, like instructions for governmental employees, official letters, press releases, surveys, and more, appeared to be sent from other government officials.
Interestingly, as part of the infection chain, in most campaigns, attackers also bring their own legitimate, signed and trusted executables of major antivirus products to side-load malicious DLLs (dynamic link library) files to evade detection, especially from behavioral monitoring products.
As shown in the illustrations above, the abused legitimate executables belong to antivirus products including a component of Avast antivirus, BitDefender agent and Windows defender.
Though the attack chains involve fileless activities like usage of VBA macros, PowerShell code, and legitimate Windows built-in tools, this campaign is not designed to achieve a fileless approach as the researchers told The Hacker News that other parts of the campaign expose malicious activities to the file system.
"To date, we have not seen such a persistent attack on a government; the same attacks were targeted for 7 months. We believe that the US Government should take note," researchers warned as the US elections are near.
"To attack the US Government, these Chinese hackers wouldn't need to change much, except making their lure documents all in English, and include themes that would trigger the interest of the victim so that the victim would open the file."
Rancor hacking group has previously been found attacking Cambodia and Singapore and continued its operations against entities within the Southeast Asia region, and this time the group has put 7 months of its effort on targeting the Southeast Asian government sector.
"We expect the group to continue to evolve, constantly changing their TTPs in the same manner as we observed throughout the campaign, as well as pushing their efforts to bypass security products and avoid attribution," the researchers conclude.
To learn more about the Rancor group and its latest campaign, you can head on to the CheckPoint report titled, "Rancor: The Year of the Phish."
| Cyber_Attack |
PCs with Intel Server Chipsets, Launched Since 2010, Can be Hacked Remotely | https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/intel-server-chipsets.html | Updated: Since the below-reported vulnerability is highly critical and it would take a few weeks for sysadmins to protect their enterprise network, the research team has not yet disclosed the technical details of the vulnerability.
Meanwhile, I have talked with Maksim Malyutin, a member of Embedi research team who discovered the vulnerability in March, and updated my article based on the information provided by him.
A critical vulnerability has been discovered in the remote management features on computers shipped with Intel processors for past seven years (and not decade), which could allow attackers to take control of the computers remotely, affecting all Intel systems, including PC, laptops, and servers, with AMT feature enabled.
As reported earlier, this critical flaw (CVE-2017-5689) is not a remote code execution, rather Malyutin confirmed to The Hacker News that it's a logical vulnerability that also gives remote attackers an opportunity to exploit this bug using additional tactics.
This elevation of privilege bug resides in the Intel Management Engine (ME) technologies such as Active Management Technology (AMT), Small Business Technology (SBT), and Intel Standard Manageability (ISM), according to an advisory published Monday by Intel.
These remote management features allow a systems administrator to remotely manage large fleets of computers over a network (via ports 16992 or 16993) in an organization or an enterprise.
Since these functions are present only in enterprise solutions, and mostly in server chipsets, Intel claims that the vulnerability doesn't affect chips running on Intel-based consumer PCs.
But Malyutin told us that "Intel-based consumer PCs with official support of Intel vPro (and have Intel AMT feature enabled) could also be at risk," and "there is also a chance of attacks performed on Intel systems without official Intel AMT support."
According to the Intel advisory, the vulnerability could be exploited in two ways:
An unprivileged network attacker could gain system privileges to provisioned Intel manageability SKUs: Intel AMT and ISM. However, Intel SBT is not vulnerable to this issue.
An unprivileged local attacker could provision manageability features gaining unprivileged network or local system privileges on Intel manageability SKUs: Intel AMT, ISM, and SBT.
How Bad is this Vulnerability
In short, a potential attacker can log into a vulnerable machine's hardware and silently perform malicious activities, like tampering with the machine, installing virtually undetectable malware, using AMT's features.
The PC's operating system never knows what's going around because AMT has direct access to the computer's network hardware. When AMT is enabled, any packet sent to the PC's wired network port will be redirected to the Management Engine and passed on to AMT – the OS never sees those packets.
These insecure management features have been made available in various, but not all, Intel chipsets from almost past seven years, starting from vPro-capable 5-series chipsets.
"Systems affected by this vulnerability are from 2010-2011 (not 2008, as was mentioned in some of the comments) because Intel manageability firmware version 6.0 and above was made not earlier than 2010," Embedi's brief post says.
"There is also a chance of attacks performed on Intel systems without Intel AMT support."
Fortunately, none of these Management Engine features come enabled by default, and system administrators must first enable the services on their local network. So, basically if you are using a computer with ME features enabled, you are at risk.
Despite using Intel chips, modern Apple Mac computers do not ship with the AMT software and are thus not affected by the flaw.
Affected Firmware Versions & How to Patch
The security flaw affects Intel manageability firmware versions 6.x, 7.x, 8.x 9.x, 10.x, 11.0, 11.5, and 11.6 for Intel's AMT, ISM, and SBT platforms. However, versions before 6 or after 11.6 are not impacted.
Intel has rated the vulnerability as highly critical and released new firmware versions, instructions to detect if any workstation runs AMT, ISM, or SBT, a detection guide to check if your system is vulnerable, and a mitigation guide for those organizations that can not immediately install updates.
The chipmaker is recommending vulnerable customers install a firmware patch as soon as possible.
"Fixing this requires a system firmware update in order to provide new ME [management engine] firmware (including an updated copy of the AMT code). Many of the affected machines are no longer receiving firmware updates from their manufacturers, and so will probably never get a fix," CoreOS security engineer Matthew Garrett explained in a blog post. "Anyone who ever enables AMT on one of these devices will be vulnerable."
"That's ignoring the fact that firmware updates are rarely flagged as security critical (they don't generally come via Windows Update), so even when updates are made available, users probably won't know about them or install them."
Malyutin told The Hacker News that they would release more technical details about this flaw in upcoming days, including different attack vectors for successful exploitation. We will update this article accordingly. Stay Tuned!
| Vulnerability |
Ticketmaster Suffers Security Breach – Personal and Payment Data Stolen | https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/ticketmaster-data-breach.html | Global entertainment ticketing service Ticketmaster has admitted that the company has suffered a security breach, warning customers that their personal and payment information may have been accessed by an unknown third-party.
The company has blamed a third-party support customer service chat application for the data breach that believed to affect tens of thousands of its customers.
The customer support chat application, made by Inbenta Technologies—a third-party artificial intelligence tech supplier—used to help major websites interact with their customers.
In its statement, Ticketmaster said it discovered malicious software on the customer support application hosted on its UK website that allowed attackers to extract the personal and payment information from its customers buying tickets.
Ticketmaster disabled the Inbenta product across all of its websites as soon as it recognized the malicious code.
However, Inbenta Technologies turned away blame back to Ticketmaster, saying that the ticketing service deployed the chat application improperly on its website.
"Upon further investigation by both parties, it has been confirmed that the source of the data breach was a single piece of JavaScript code, that was customized by Inbenta to meet Ticketmaster's particular requirements," Inbenta chief executive Jordi Torras said in a statement.
"This code is not part of any of Inbenta's products or present in any of our other implementations. Ticketmaster directly applied the script to its payments page, without notifying our team."
Inbenta said by applying this Javascript to the payment page, Ticketmaster presented attackers with "a point of vulnerability that affects the capacity for web forms to upload files," allowing attackers to locate, modify, and use the script to "extract the payment information of Ticketmaster customers processed between February and June 2018."
Compromised information includes name, address, email address, telephone number, payment details and Ticketmaster login details of its customers.
"Forensic teams and security experts are working around the clock to understand how the data was compromised," Ticketmaster said. "We are working with relevant authorities, as well as credit card companies and banks."
Neither Ticketmaster nor Inbenta did say the number of customers affected by the incident, but the ticketing service did confirm that less than 5% of its global customer base has been affected.
Inbenta is entirely confident that no other customer of Inbenta has been compromised in any way, and that the incident has "nothing to do with any of its industry-leading AI and machine learning products," which serve hundreds of customers on six continents.
"We can fully assure our customers and end-users that no other implementation of Inbenta across any of our products or customer deployments has been affected," Inbenta said.
Ticketmaster said that it has emailed all affected customers, and is offering 12 months of free identity monitoring service for those who have been impacted.
Affected customers are also advised to keep a close eye on their bank account transactions for signs of any suspicious activity, and immediately notify their banks if found any.
Users are also advised to be cautious if they receive any suspicious or unrecognized phone call, text message, or email from anyone saying you must pay taxes or a debt immediately—even if they provide your personal information.
| Data_Breaches |
Gameover ZeuS Trojan Targets Users of Monster.com Employment Portal | https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/gameover-zeus-trojan-targets-users-of.html | Zeus Trojan is one of the most popular families of Banking Trojan, which was also used in a targeted malware campaign against a Salesforce.com customer at the end of the last month and researchers found that the new variant of Zeus Trojan has web crawling capabilities that are used to grab sensitive business data from that customer's CRM instance.
'GameOver' Banking Trojan is also a variant of Zeus financial malware that spreads via phishing emails. GameOver Zeus Trojan makes fraudulent transactions from your bank once installed in your system with the capability to conduct Distributed Denial of Service, or DDoS, attack using a botnet, which involves multiple computers flooding the financial institution's server with traffic in an effort to deny legitimate users access to the site.
TAREGET - EMPLOYMENT WEBSITES
Now, a new variant of GameOver Zeus Trojan has been spotted, targeting users of popular employment websites with social engineering attacks, implemented to fetch additional private information about the victims, that could be used for bypassing multi-factor authentication mechanisms on other websites or services.
The new variant has the capabilities to use complex web injections and perform Man-In-The-Browser (MITB) attack, which means it has caliber to infect a web browser to modify web pages, modify web contents or can insert addition contents, all in a completely covert fashion invisible to both the user and web host, even when other authentication factor solutions are in use.
Initially the new variant of the GameOver Zeus Trojan targeted 'CareerBuilder.com', which is the largest employment website in the US, but now the researchers at F-Secure came across the same variant targeting one of the world largest employment website, 'Monster.com'.
MONSTER vs ZEUS
The victims are served with the fake login page which looks similar to the same legitimate page (hiring.monster.com) of the website. Once the victim login, they are directed to the web page injected by the malware.
The web page serves 18 different security questions to choose from, that are nothing but all the common security questions which the various websites ask; from mailing websites to financial ones. The list of which are given below:
• In what City / Town does your nearest sibling live?
• In what City / Town was your first job?
• In what city did you meet your spouse/significant other?
• In what city or town did your mother and father meet?
• What are the last 5 digits / letters of your driver\'s license number?
• What is the first name of the boy or girl that you first dated?
• What is the first name of your first supervisor?
• What is the name of the first school you attended?
• What is the name of the school that you attended aged 14-16?
• What is the name of the street that you grew up on?
• What is the name of your favorite childhood friend?
• What is the street number of the first house you remember living in?
• What is your oldest sibling\'s birthday month and year? (e.g., January 1900)
• What is your youngest sibling\'s birthday?
• What month and day is your anniversary? (e.g January 2)
• What was the city where you were married?
• What was the first musical concert that you attended?
• What was your favorite activity in school?
The researchers warned the HR Recruiters with the website accounts to be on the lookout for any such irregularities.
"If the account is potentially tied to a bank account and a spending budget … it's a target for banking Trojans," said the researchers.
Also in 2012, the FBI warned us about the 'GameOver' banking Trojan, but attackers are now bypassing every traditional security measures making Zeus more sophisticated piece of malware and putting Zeus to use it against various popular and big targets.
| Malware |
Hackers are using Nuclear Exploit Kit to Spread Cryptowall 4.0 Ransomware | https://thehackernews.com/2015/11/cryptowall-ransomware-malware.html | Beware Internet Users!
Cryptowall 4.0 – the newest version of the world's worst Ransomware – has surfaced in the Nuclear exploit kit, one of the most potent exploit kits available in the underground market for hacking into computers.
Ransomware threat has emerged as one of the biggest threats to internet users in recent times. Typically, a Ransomware malware encrypts all files on victim's computer with a strong cryptographic algorithm, then demand a ransom to be paid in Bitcoin (range between $200 and $10,000).
Cryptowall is currently among the most widespread and sophisticated family of Ransomware backed by a very robust back-end infrastructure.
Also Read: Anyone can Now Create their Own Ransomware using This Hacking ToolKit
The recent report dated back to last month suggested that the authors of Cryptowall 3.0 ransomware virus have managed to raise more than $325 Million in revenue in the past year alone.
With the debut of Cryptowall 4.0 at the beginning of this month, ransomware threat has become more sophisticated and advanced as Cryptowall 4.0 is employing "vastly improved" communications as well as better design code so that it can exploit more vulnerabilities.
Cryptowall 4.0 Delivered via Nuclear Exploit Kit
Now less than a month after its release, Cryptowall 4.0 ransomware has been spotted to be delivered as part of a Nuclear Exploit Kit, according to the security researchers at the SANS Internet Storm Center (ISC).
Until recently, Cryptowall 4.0 has been distributed only via malicious spam and phishing emails, but now it has been infecting machines via an Exploit Kit.
SANS security researcher Brad Duncan wrote in a blog post published Tuesday that a cyber criminal working off domains belonging to Chinese registrar BizCN has been spreading the Cryptowall 4.0 ransomware via the Nuclear Exploit Kit.
Duncan said the cyber gang, dubbed the "BizCN gate actor" by him, began distributing the ransomware in payloads from the exploit kit as early as November 20.
Also Read: Free Ransomware Decryption and Malware Removal ToolKit
Duncan published a whole technical analysis on the SANS ISC website that shows how Nuclear exploit kit infects a vulnerable Windows host.
"Since this information is now public, the BizCN gate actor may change [their] tactics," Duncan said in the post. "However, unless this actor initiates a drastic change, it can always be found again."
Cryptowall 4.0 made its debut earlier this month with upgrades that made it even more challenging for victims to recover files from compromised computers than its predecessor.
Cryptowall 4.0 now not only encrypts the data in your files but also encrypts the file names as well, with vastly improved communication capabilities.
What Should You do if You get Infected by Cryptowall 4.0?
Once your computer is infected by Cryptowall 4.0, unfortunately, there is not much you can do, as the encryption it uses is very strong and almost unbreakable.
The only options you are left with are:
Either, Format your computer and restore your data from the backup
Or, Pay the Ransom money for decryption key
However, we do not advise you to pay ransom as it does not guarantee that you'll get the decryption key and paying ransom would encourage criminal activities as well.
Prevention is the Best Practice
As I previously recommended, the best defense measure against Ransomware is creating awareness within the organizations, as well as maintaining backups that are regularly rotated.
Most viruses are introduced by opening infected attachments or clicking on links to malware usually contained in spam emails.
So, DO NOT CLICK on suspicious links provided in emails and attachments from unknown sources.
Also Read: Ransomware Attacks Threaten Wearable Devices and IoTs
Moreover, ensure that your systems are running the latest version of Antivirus software with up to date malware definitions.
| Malware |
Somebody Offered Money to Raspberry Pi Foundation for Pre-Installing Malware | https://thehackernews.com/2015/12/raspberry-pi-malware.html | The Raspberry Pi is now gaining attention from malware distributors who want the popular mini-computers to deliver with pre-install malware.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation has made a shocking revelation that the charitable foundation has been offered money to install malware onto the Raspberry Pi machines before they were shipped out to users.
The Raspberry Pi is an extremely simple computer that looks and feels very basic, but could be built into many geeky projects. Due to the low-cost appeal of the Raspberry Pi, the Foundation has sold over 4 million units.
Just Last month, Raspberry Pi unveiled its latest wonder: The Raspberry Pi Zero – a programmable computer that costs just $5 (or £4), may rank as the world's cheapest computer.
Last Wednesday, the Foundation tweeted a screenshot of an email in which "business officer" Linda effectively asked Foundation's director of communications Liz Uptonto to install a suspicious executable file onto Raspberry Pis for which the officer promised to offer a "price per install."
The email further explained that installing the executable file would create a shortcut icon on the user's desktop and opening the shortcut would take the user to the company's website. "Then this is our target," the email reads.
Here's the screenshot of the full email:
However, the name of the company represented by Linda was not revealed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
Obviously, the paid-for-malware distributor pitched the wrong organisation, who declined the offer, describing the company as "evildoers," but the incident once again raises the question about this common, widespread issue.
| Malware |
Beware! Don't Fall For "Font Wasn't Found" Google Chrome Malware Scam | https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/HoeflerText-font-chrome.html | Next time when you accidentally or curiously land up on a website with jumbled content prompting you to download a missing font to read the blog by updating the Chrome font pack…
…Just Don't Download and Install It. It's a Trap!
Scammers and hackers are targeting Google Chrome users with this new hacking scam that's incredibly easy to fall for, prompting users to download a fake Google Chrome font pack update just to trick them into installing malware on their systems.
Here's What the Scam is and How it works:
It's a "The 'HoeflerText' font wasn't found" scam.
Security firm NeoSmart Technologies recently identified the malicious campaign while browsing an unnamed WordPress website that had allegedly already been compromised, possibly due to failing to apply timely security updates.
The scam is not a new one to identified by NeoSmart. It has been making rounds since last month.
The hackers are inserting JavaScript into poorly secured, but legitimate websites to modify the text rendering on them, which causes the sites to look all jumbled with mis-encoded text containing symbols and other random characters.
So if Chrome users come across such websites from a search engine result or social media site, the script makes the website unreadable and prompts them to fix the issue by updating their 'Chrome font pack.'
The prompt window says: "The 'HoeflerText' font wasn't found," and you're then asked to update the "Chrome Font Pack." If clicked, it actually installs a malware trojan on your machine.
The scam can also be used to infect victims computer with Spora ransomware -- one of the most well-run ransomware operations, discovered at the start of this year, with active infection channels, advanced crypto, and an advanced ransom payment service.
What makes this scam particularly appealing is that everything about the browser message looks legit, from the type of "missing font" and the dialog window to the Chrome logo and the right shade of blue on the "update" button.
How to identify the Scam?
There are several ways to recognize this scam.
First of all, the dialog window has been hard-coded to show that you are running Chrome version 53 even if you actually aren't, which might be a clue that something is not right.
Secondly, there's an issue with the filenames: Clicking the "Update" button proceeds to download an executable file titled "Chrome Font v7.5.1.exe." But this file is not the one shown in the malicious instruction image, which reads "Chrome_Font.exe."
Even if you fail to identify these clues, you may get a standard warning, saying "this file isn't downloaded often," when you try to download the file.
Chrome Does Not Flag it as Malware
However, what's strange is that the Chrome browser doesn't flag the file as malware, but the browser does block it because the file is not downloaded too often, which is a standard warning.
NeoSmart Technologies has since run the malware through VirusTotal, which revealed that currently only 9 out of 59 anti-virus software in the database accurately identify the file as malware.
So users are always recommended to exercise caution when downloading anything from the Internet onto their computers, to keep your antivirus software up-to-date and do not ever fall for scam asking you to update the Chrome font pack, as it already comes with everything you need.
| Malware |
FBI get 4 more months to fight with DNSChanger | https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/fbi-get-4-more-months-to-fight-with.html | FBI get 4 more months to fight with DNSChanger
On March 5th, a US District Court (New York) signed an order to extend the March 8th deadline to July 9th.This extension will allow for all affected entities to continue to track-down and remediate agains hosts which are still compromised. Current data indicates that there are still several million infected/affected hosts world-wide dealing with this issue.
Over the last month, the temporary servers routed an average of 430,000 infected IP addresses according to the government request for extension. Security firm Internet Identity also found that at least 94 Fortune 500s and three major government agencies are still infected with DNSChanger. The remaining infected systems will now have an additional four months to get rid of the malware before having their DNS pulled.
The malware hijacked users clicks by modifying their computers' domain name system (DNS) settings to send URL requests to the criminals' own servers, a tactic that shunted victims to hacker-created sites that resembled the real domains.
It's estimated that DNSChanger generated close to $14 million in illicit advertising money via click hi-jacking and replacing online ads. The six individuals who were allegedly responsible for releasing the malware have been cleared for extradition by an Estonian court to face trial in the US.
"There has been significant progress within the government and enterprise, where it's easier to clean things up, but ISPs have been slower, in part because some of them are still trying to figure out how best to handle the situation," said Rasmussen, president and CTO at IID.
To find out whether your computer or network router is infected with DNSChanger malware, click here. If you are infected, make sure you've got a serious anti-virus security suite, update it and run a full system scan. If that doesn't work, contact a computer professional.
Also Read : FAQ : DNSChanger Trojan, Impact and Solutions
| Malware |
LOCKER Malware - Yet another new variant of Cryptolocker Ransomware | https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/locker-malware-yet-another-new-variant.html | Ransomware, a threat to internet users that continues to grow in popularity with cyber criminals due to its success and monetary potential. This is nothing new and to be expected. I have noticed many discussions on underground hacking forums about "How to create Ransomware like Cryptolocker malware" or "Malware - hacking tool-kit with ransomware features".
Security intelligence provider, IntelCrawler has discovered a new ransomware variant called Locker that demands $150 (£92) to restore files that it has encrypted.
Like Cryptolocker, this new ransomware is also nasty because infected users are in danger of losing their personal files forever.
Locker mainly spreads by drive-by downloads from compromised websites, disguised itself as MP3 files and use system software vulnerabilities to infect the end user.
Once it has infected a system, malware first checks the infected machine has an internet connection or not. Then it deletes any original files from the victim's computer after using AES-CTR for encrypting the files on infected devices and add ". perfect" extension to them.
Locker's encryption is based on an open source tool called 'TurboPower LockBox' library. After encrypting all files, the malware place a "CONTACT.TXT" file in each directory, which provides contact details of the author to buy the decryption key and once the ransom is paid, each victim gets a key to unscramble files.
The good news is that the researchers are working on the universal decryption software in order to help the victims. "It appears that the hackers are simply comparing the list of infected IP addresses of users, along with their host names," according IntelCrawler.
IntelCrawler had discovered 50 different builds of the malware, which are being sold in underground markets for pay-per install programs. One builds had just under 6,000 infected machines. ZdNet reported.
Malware will encrypt all drives visible on an infected system, so you must be sure that your backups are stored remotely or in a location that is not simply another drive partition or mapping to another location.
The malware infects users from the United States, Turkey, Russia, Germany and the Netherlands. Users should remain vigilant about their security. Please double check the legitimacy of links received in emails and ensure you have your antivirus up to date to help protect against such threats.
| Malware |
Alert — There's A New Malware Out There Snatching Users' Passwords | https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/alert-theres-new-malware-out-there.html | A previously undocumented malware downloader has been spotted in the wild in phishing attacks to deploy credential stealers and other malicious payloads.
Dubbed "Saint Bot," the malware is said to have first appeared on the scene in January 2021, with indications that it's under active development.
"Saint Bot is a downloader that appeared quite recently, and slowly is getting momentum. It was seen dropping stealers (i.e. Taurus Stealer) or further loaders (example), yet its design allows [it] to utilize it for distributing any kind of malware," said Aleksandra "Hasherezade" Doniec, a threat intelligence analyst at Malwarebytes.
"Furthermore, Saint Bot employs a wide variety of techniques which, although not novel, indicate some level of sophistication considering its relatively new appearance."
The infection chain analyzed by the cybersecurity firm begins with a phishing email containing an embedded ZIP file ("bitcoin.zip") that claims to be a bitcoin wallet when, in fact, it's a PowerShell script under the guise of .LNK shortcut file. This PowerShell script then downloads the next stage malware, a WindowsUpdate.exe executable, which, in turn, drops a second executable (InstallUtil.exe) that takes care of downloading two more executables named def.exe and putty.exe.
While the former is a batch script responsible for disabling Windows Defender, putty.exe contains the malicious payload that eventually connects to a command-and-control (C2) server for further exploitation.
The obfuscation present in each stage of the infection, coupled with the anti-analysis techniques adopted by the malware, allows the malware operators to exploit the devices they were installed on without attracting attention.
Besides performing "self defense checks" to verify the presence of a debugger or a virtual environment, Saint Bot is designed to not execute in Romania and select countries within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine.
The list of commands supported by the malware include —
downloading and executing other payloads retrieved from the C2 server
updating the bot malware, and
uninstalling itself from the compromised machine
While these capabilities may seem very small, the fact that Saint Bot serves as a downloader for other malware makes it dangerous enough.
Interestingly, the payloads themselves are fetched from files hosted on Discord, a tactic that has become increasingly common among threat actors, who are abusing legitimate functions of such platforms for C2 communications, evade security, and deliver malware.
"When files are uploaded and stored within the Discord CDN, they can be accessed using the hardcoded CDN URL by any system, regardless of whether Discord has been installed, simply by browsing to the CDN URL where the content is hosted," researchers from Cisco Talos disclosed in an analysis earlier this week, thus turning software like Discord and Slack into lucrative targets for hosting malicious content.
"Saint Bot is yet another tiny downloader," Hasherezade said. "[It is] not as mature as SmokeLoader, but it is quite new and currently actively developed. The author seems to have some knowledge of malware design, which is visible by the wide range of techniques used. Yet, all the deployed techniques are well-known and pretty standard, [and] not showing much creativity so far."
| Malware |
Chinese Hackers Caught by US water control system Honeypots | https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/Chinese-hackers-APT1-honeypot-water-control-system.html | A notorious Chinese hacker collective known as APT1 or Comment Crew, possibly linked to the Chinese Army, have been caught red handed breaking into a fake United States water control system i.e. known as a Honeypot.
Kyle Wilhoit, a researcher with security company Trend Micro has just revealed the details at BlackHat Conference on Wednesday.
Hackers hacked a water control system for a US municipality back in December last year, but it was merely a decoy set up by Kyle Wilhoit using a Word document hiding malicious software to gain full access.
The honeypots directly mimicked the ICS/Scada devices used in many critical infrastructure power and water plants. Cloud software was used to create realistic Web-based login and configuration screens for local water plants seemingly based in Ireland, Russia, Singapore, China, Japan, Australia, Brazil, and the U.S.
Researchers have been tracked back to the APT1 Group, which security company Mandiant has claimed operates as part of China's army. Wilhoit used a tool called the Browser Exploitation Framework, or BeEF, to gain access to his attackers' systems and get precise data on their location. He was able to access data from their Wi-Fi cards to triangulate their location.
Between March and June this year Wilhoit's 12 honeypots attracted 74 attacks and roughly half of the critical attacks on his honeypots come from China, with Germany, UK, France, Palestine and Japan. "I actually watched the attacker interface with the machine. It was 100 percent clear they knew what they were doing." Wilhoit said.
The incident has led Wilhoit to believe that other utilities around the world may have already been infiltrated by hackers, and that engineers working at these facilities may not realize that their systems have been compromised. The attacks reportedly occurred before the US opened talks with China over cyber security.
| Cyber_Attack |
iOS 8 'Date Trick' Loophole Allows Play Nintendo Games Using Emulators | https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/ios-8-date-trick-loophole-allows-play.html | If you are a retro games lover and want to play it on your iPhone, a security loop in iOS 8 makes it possible for you to play classic SNES games on your iPhone, without the need to jailbreak your Apple devices.
Since Apple doesn't allow emulators on the App Store for copyright reasons, making it difficult to install third-party emulators and other unapproved applications.
But, the latest upcoming beta version iOS 8.1 patched the famous "Date Trick" that had allowed iOS emulator makers to bypass App Store restrictions and run unofficial emulators on iPhones and iPads.
The loophole called the "Date Trick," found by Dario Sepulveda of the GBA4iOS team, is currently being used in the wild by the makers of emulators like GBA4iOS and SNES emulator since last year, allowing iOS users to downloaded and installed unapproved apps through the built-in Safari browser.
Technically, by changing the device's date and time back at least two months on an iPad or iPhone, it is possible to bypass the restrictions on unsigned apps, which allows Apple iOS users to easily run emulators without jailbreaking their devices.
HOW TO DOWNLOAD SNES SiOS SUPER NINTENDO EMULATOR FOR iOS 8
On your iOS 8 device, open up the Safari browser and Go to iEmulators.com
Go to the Apps in the top tabs, swipe down to SiOS: A SNES emulator, and tap "Install".
Go to Settings > General > Date and Time.
Toggle Automatically Set to OFF, and manually set your date to two months back.
Once you've set the date two months back, retry installation.
When installation finishes, open SiOS app and tap Trust when the popup asks.
Go back to Settings and under General find the Date and Time again and toggle "Automatic" back on.
After the installation of the emulator, now it's time to grab the ROMs and get your old-school gaming on! In order to Find Games for the SiOS Super Nintendo Emulator on iPhone follow some simple guidelines given below:
Go to CoolRoms (Super Nintendo Section) and select a ROM.
Select 'Download Now' and then select 'Open in SiOS' and the ROM will save in the SiOS app.
Go into SiOS and select the desired ROM.
Now start playing and Enjoy your favorite game. You can also watch the video demonstration below, which will help you to install emulator on your iPhones and iPads.
APPLE TO PATCH THE LOOPHOLE IN iOS 8.1
Apple is going to block the loophole that allowed people to play classic video games and run unapproved apps on iOS 8 in its upcoming beta version iOS 8.1. But unsurprisingly, the emulator community isn't too happy about this. So, if you love playing games without jailbreaking your iDevices, you should hold off on updating to iOS 8.1.
iOS users can still jailbreak their iDevices and download emulators through various third-party app stores. The final release of iOS 8.1, which will fix this issue, is expected later this month.
| Vulnerability |
Microsoft Patches Two Zero-Day Flaws Under Active Attack | https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/microsoft-patch-tuesday.html | It's time to gear up for the latest May 2018 Patch Tuesday.
Microsoft has today released security patches for a total of 67 vulnerabilities, including two zero-days that have actively been exploited in the wild by cybercriminals, and two publicly disclosed bugs.
In brief, Microsoft is addressing 21 vulnerabilities that are rated as critical, 42 rated important, and 4 rated as low severity.
These patch updates address security flaws in Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Exchange Server, Outlook, .NET Framework, Microsoft Hyper-V, ChakraCore, Azure IoT SDK, and more.
1) Double Kill IE 0-day Vulnerability
The first zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2018-8174) under active attack is a critical remote code execution vulnerability that was revealed by Chinese security firm Qihoo 360 last month and affected all supported versions of Windows operating systems.
Dubbed "Double Kill" by the researchers, the vulnerability is notable and requires prompt attention as it could allow an attacker to remotely take control over an affected system by executing malicious code remotely through several ways, such as a compromised website, or malicious Office documents.
The Double Kill vulnerability is a use-after-free issue which resides in the way the VBScript Engine (included in all currently supported versions of Windows) handles objects in computer memory, allowing attackers to execute code that runs with the same system privileges as of the logged-in user.
"In a web-based attack scenario, an attacker could host a specially crafted website that is designed to exploit the vulnerability through Internet Explorer and then convince a user to view the website. An attacker could also embed an ActiveX control marked 'safe for initialization' in an application or Microsoft Office document that hosts the IE rendering engine," Microsoft explains in its advisory.
"The attacker could also take advantage of compromised websites and websites that accept or host user-provided content or advertisements. These websites could contain specially crafted content that could exploit the vulnerability."
Users with administrative rights on their systems are impacted more than the ones with limited rights, as an attacker successfully exploiting the vulnerability could take control of an affected system.
However, that doesn't mean that low-privileged users are spared. If users are logged in on an affected system with more limited rights, attackers may still be able to escalate their privileges by exploiting a separate vulnerability.
Researchers from Qihoo 360 and Kaspersky Labs found that the vulnerability was actively being exploited in the wild by an advanced state-sponsored hacking group in targeted attacks, but neither Microsoft nor Qihoo 360 and Kaspersky provided any information on the threat group.
2) Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
The second zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2018-8120) patched this month is a privilege-escalation flaw that occurred in the Win32k component of Windows when it fails to properly handle objects in computer memory.
Successful exploitation of the flaw can allow attackers to execute arbitrary code in kernel mode, eventually allowing them to install programs or malware; view, edit or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.
The vulnerability is rated "important," and only affects Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. The issue has actively been exploited by threat actors, but Microsoft did not provide any detail about the in-the-wild exploits.
Two Publicly Disclosed Flaws
Microsoft also addressed two "important" Windows vulnerabilities whose details have already been made public.
One of these is a Windows kernel flaw (CVE-2018-8141) that could lead to information disclosure, and the other is a Windows Image bug (CVE-2018-8170) that could lead to Elevation of Privilege.
In addition, the May 2018 updates resolve 20 more critical issues, including memory corruptions in the Edge and Internet Explorer (IE) scripting engines and remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities in Hyper-V and Hyper-V SMB.
Meanwhile, Adobe has also released its Patch Tuesday updates, addressing five security vulnerabilities—one critical bug in Flash Player, one critical and two important flaws in Creative Cloud and one important bug in Connect.
Users are strongly advised to install security updates as soon as possible in order to protect themselves against the active attacks in the wild.
For installing security updates, head on to Settings → Update & security → Windows Update → Check for updates, or you can install the updates manually.
| Vulnerability |
Project Zero - A Team of Star-Hackers Hired by Google to Protect the Internet | https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/project-zero-team-of-star-hackers-hired.html | Today Google has publicly revealed its new initiative called "Project Zero," a team of Star Hackers and Bug Hunters with the sole mission to improve security and protect the Internet.
A team of superheroes in sci-fi movies protect the world from Alien attack or bad actors, likewise Project Zero is a dedicated team of top security researchers, who have been hired by Google to finding the most severe security flaws in software around the world and fixing them.
PROTECT ZERO vs ZERO-DAY
Project Zero gets its name from the term "zero-day," and team will make sure that zero-day vulnerabilities don't let fall into the wrong hands of Criminals, State-sponsored hackers and Intelligence Agencies.
"Yet in sophisticated attacks, we see the use of "zero-day" vulnerabilities to target, for example, human rights activists or to conduct industrial espionage." Chris Evans said, who was leading Google's Chrome security team and now will lead Project Zero.
Zero-day vulnerabilities could give bad actors the power to completely control target users' computers, and in such scenario - no encryption can protect them.
RECRUITMENT OF STAR HACKERS
Google has already recruited some hackers at Project Zero:
Ben Hawkes - an independent researcher from New Zealand, and well known for discovering dozens of bugs in software like Adobe Flash and Microsoft Office.
George Hotz - best known for hacking Sony PlayStation 3, cracking iPhone and Google's Chrome browser.
Tavis Ormandy - working as an Information Security Engineer at Google and known for discovering lots of critical zero-day vulnerabilities in various softwares.
and many more..
Main objective of the Project Zero is to significantly reduce the number of people harmed by targeted attacks.
"We're hiring the best practically-minded security researchers and contributing 100% of their time toward improving security across the Internet." Chris added.
TEAM WORK
However, they are not restricted to finding bugs in Google's products only, rather they can choose targets by themselves strategically, but possibly team would majorly focus on the softwares that relied upon by a significant number of people. Flaw hunting and reporting process will be as mentioned below:
The Project Zero team will hunt for zero-day vulnerabilities in Popular Softwares.
Google will report flaws to vendors.
Google will release full vulnerability disclosure only when the vendor issues a patch for it.
Every bug will be filed transparently in an external database.
"We'll use standard approaches such as locating and reporting large numbers of vulnerabilities. In addition, we'll be conducting new research into mitigations, exploitation, program analysis—and anything else that our researchers decide is a worthwhile investment." Chris said.
Google is looking forward to grow their team of security experts and is making every effort to dedicatedly contribute to the Infosec Community.
| Vulnerability |
Researcher Discloses New Zero-Day Affecting All Versions of Windows | https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/windows-zero-day-vulnerability.html | A security researcher has publicly disclosed an unpatched zero-day vulnerability in all supported versions of Microsoft Windows operating system (including server editions) after the company failed to patch a responsibly disclosed bug within the 120-days deadline.
Discovered by Lucas Leong of the Trend Micro Security Research team, the zero-day vulnerability resides in Microsoft Jet Database Engine that could allow an attacker to remotely execute malicious code on any vulnerable Windows computer.
The Microsoft JET Database Engine, or simply JET (Joint Engine Technology), is a database engine integrated within several Microsoft products, including Microsoft Access and Visual Basic.
According to the an advisory released by Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), the vulnerability is due to a problem with the management of indexes in the Jet database engine that, if exploited successfully, can cause an out-out-bounds memory write, leading to remote code execution.
An attacker must convince a targeted user into opening a specially crafted JET database file in order to exploit this vulnerability and remotely execute malicious code on a targeted vulnerable Windows computer.
"Crafted data in a database file can trigger a write past the end of an allocated buffer. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to execute code under the context of the current process," Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative wrote in its blog post.
"Various applications use this database format. An attacker using this would be able to execute code at the level of the current process."
According to the ZDI researchers, the vulnerability exists in all supported Windows versions, including Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7, and Windows Server Edition 2008 to 2016.
ZDI reported the vulnerability to Microsoft on May 8, and the tech giant confirmed the bug on 14 May, but failed to patch the vulnerability and release an update within a 120-day (4 months) deadline, making ZDI go public with the vulnerability details.
Proof-of-concept exploit code for the vulnerability has also been published by the Trend Micro its GitHub page.
Microsoft is working on a patch for the vulnerability, and since it was not included in September Patch Tuesday, you can expect the fix in Microsoft's October patch release.
Trend Micro recommends all affected users to "restrict interaction with the application to trusted files," as a mitigation until Microsoft comes up with a patch.
| Vulnerability |
Stuxnet virus also infected Chevron's IT network | https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/stuxnet-virus-also-infected-chevrons-it.html | Stuxnet, a sophisticated computer virus created by the United States and Israel, to spy on and attack Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities in Natanz also infected Chevron 's network in 2010, immediately after it spread into the wild. This Government created virus Now Infecting Corporations also.
Chevron oil giant found the virus in its systems after the malware's existence was first reported in a blog post in July 2010, according to Mark Koelmel, general manager of the earth-sciences department at the big U.S. oil company. The U.S. government has never officially acknowledged the Stuxnet program.
Stuxnet which was designed to attack computer systems designed by German industrial giant Siemens for managing water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other critical infrastructure has turned up in other countries.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Chevron's experience with Stuxnet appears to be the result of the malware's unintentional release into cyberspace, much like an experimental virus escaping from a medical lab.
"Two years ago, our security systems identified the Stuxnet virus. We immediately addressed the issue without incident," a Chevron representative said.
Even though Stuxnet targeted industrial facilities, it also infected regular PCs and as a result was discovered in June 2010, about a year after the earliest known version was believed to be created.
On other hand, U.S. officials have blamed Iran for creating the Shamoon virus, which was responsible for a cyber attack that infected more than 30,000 computers at Saudi Arabian oil company Saudi Aramco and Qatar's natural gas firm Rasgas in mid-August.
"I think the downside of what they did is going to be far worse than what they actually accomplished," Chevron .
| Malware |
PLATINUM Hackers Hijack Windows Hotpatching to Stay Hidden | https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/windows-hotpatching-malware.html | In Brief
The Microsoft's Windows Defender Advanced Threat Hunting team detected that a cyber espionage group of hackers, known as PLATINUM, has found a way to turn the Windows's Hotpatching technique (a way of updating the operating system without requiring a restart) to hide its malware from Antivirus products.
PLATINUM group has been active since 2009 and launching large-scale attacks against governmental organizations, intelligence agencies, defense institutes and telecommunication providers in South and Southeast Asia.
Practically speaking, the most important thing for a sophisticated APT hacker and a cyber-espionage group is to remain undetected for the longest possible period.
Well, that's exactly what an APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) group has achieved.
The Microsoft's Windows Defender Advanced Threat Hunting team has discovered that an APT group, dubbed Platinum, has been spying on high-profile targets by abusing a "novel" technique called Hotpatching.
Introduced in Windows Server 2003, the Hotpatching feature allows Microsoft to upgrade applications or the operating system in the running system without having to reboot the computer by inserting the new, updated code into a server.
The Platinum hacking group has often used the spear-phishing technique to penetrate initially the targeted networks, used numerous zero-day vulnerabilities in attacks, and has taken many efforts to hide its attacks.
The latest report released by Microsoft said the Platinum group abused the Windows' hotpatching feature, allowing it to inject malicious code into running processes without having to reboot the server and then later hide backdoors and other malware from installed antivirus solution.
"If the tool fails to inject code using hot patching, it reverts to attempting the other more common code injection techniques into common Windows processes, primarily targeting winlogon.exe, lsass.exe, and svchost.exe," Microsoft said in its report.
The hotpatching technique works against Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Platinum abused the technique in real-world attacks to hide its efforts from analysis.
The group has been using the Hotpatching technique to install the Dipsing, Adbupd and JPIN backdoors on networks belonging to governmental organizations, including defense organizations, intelligence agencies, diplomats and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and then to steal sensitive data.
The goal of the attacks doesn't appear to have been immediate financial gain; rather the Platinum APT group is up to a broader economic espionage campaign using stolen information.
The group has been targeting countries in South and Southeast Asia since at least 2009, with Malaysia being its biggest victim, following Indonesia, China, and India.
Though the Platinum group is still active, there is still a way for organizations and companies to avoid infection.
Microsoft's security experts explain that the hotpatching technique requires admin-level permissions, so the threat actors are sending spear-phishing emails that come with boobytrapped Office documents to infect each target.
| Malware |
New Windows Trojan Spreads MIRAI Malware To Hack More IoT Devices | https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/mirai-iot-botnet-windows.html | MIRAI – possibly the biggest IoT-based malware threat that emerged last year, which caused vast internet outage in October last year by launching massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against the popular DNS provider Dyn.
Now, the infamous malware has updated itself to boost its distribution efforts.
Researchers from Russian cyber-security firm Dr.Web have now uncovered a Windows Trojan designed to built with the sole purpose of helping hackers spread Mirai to even more devices.
Mirai is a malicious software program for Linux-based internet-of-things (IoT) devices which scan for insecure IoT devices, enslaves them into a botnet network, and then used them to launch DDoS attacks, and spreads over Telnet by using factory device credentials.
It all started early October last year when a hacker publicly released the source code of Mirai.
Dubbed Trojan.Mirai.1, the new Trojan targets Windows computers and scans the user's network for compromisable Linux-based connected devices.
Once installed on a Windows computer, the Trojan connects to a command-and-control (C&C) server from which it downloads a configuration file containing a range of IP addresses to attempt authentication over several ports such as 22 (SSH) and 23 (Telnet), 135, 445, 1433, 3306 and 3389.
Successful authentication lets malware runs certain commands specified in the configuration file, depending on the type of compromised system.
In the case of Linux systems accessed via Telnet protocol, the Trojan downloads a binary file on the compromised device, which subsequently downloads and launches Linux.Mirai.
"Trojan.Mirai.1's Scanner can check several TCP ports simultaneously. If the Trojan successfully connects to the attacked node via any of the available protocols, it executes the indicated sequence of commands," claimed the company in an advisory published this week.
Once compromised, the Trojan can spread itself to other Windows devices, helping hackers hijack even more devices.
Besides this, researchers noted that the malware could also identify and compromise database services running on various ports, including MySQL and Microsoft SQL to create a new admin "phpminds" with the password a "phpgodwith," allowing attackers to steal the database.
At this time it's not known who created this, but the attack design demonstrates that your IoT devices that are not directly accessible from the internet can also get hacked to join the Mirai botnet army.
| Malware |
Importance of Logs and Log Management for IT Security | https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/importance-of-logs-and-log-management.html | IT Security is the name of the game and no matter how big or small the size of your organization, you will always invest enough on securing certain aspects of your IT network. In many organizations, it starts with monitoring your network for vulnerabilities that may enter the network to access potentially sensitive information in the form of security attacks.
For example, you may have firewalls as your first line of defense, followed by vulnerability management, intrusion detection and prevention systems, managing your network configurations and so on.
These are crucial because:
Your routers can be easily breached without proper configuration and restrictions.
If a firewall isn't configured correctly, a hacker can easily spot a port that is accidentally left open and can gain access to the network.
Rogue access points, botnet malware and social engineering can make your wireless a porthole into your LAN.
Why Logs?
The very purpose of IT security is to be proactive and the above measures make it more difficult for someone who attempts to compromise the network. This might just not be enough and you need to able to detect the actual breaches as they are being attempted. This is where log data really help.
To expose an attack or identify the damage caused, you need to analyze the log events on your network in real-time. By collecting and analyzing logs, you can understand what transpires within your network. Each log file contains many pieces of information that can be invaluable, especially if you know how to read them and analyze them. With proper analysis of this actionable data you can identify intrusion attempts, mis-configured equipment, and many more. Also for managing compliance, especially for PCI DSS – you need to retain logs and review them.
Monitoring and Analyzing Event Logs
When you know what is normal on your network, you can easily spot what is abnormal by monitoring the logon activity. It is very critical to analyze the event to understand the root cause and to make log analysis & log management more efficient, you need to collect and consolidate log data across the IT environment, and correlate events from multiple devices in real-time.
Apart from monitoring the activities across your web server, firewalls and other network devices, it becomes very crucial to monitor your workstation logs. For example, a workstation log can give you some key information like when a USB was connected, by whom and whether he belongs to the group that is authorized, etc. Log file analysis is best done with an SIEM software, when it comes to reading all of the events and being able to analyze and correlate activity across the various components of IT.
How SolarWinds Log & Event Manager can help you?
SolarWinds Log & Event Manager (LEM) completely monitor event logs across and acts as a central collection point for system log data, automatically aggregates and normalizes this data into a consistent format. LEM also performs multiple event correlation and has the distinct ability to set independent activity thresholds per event or per group to understand relationships between dramatically different activities. With its proactive approach, it helps you identify and respond to threats in real time.
Key areas where SolarWinds LEM helps you:
Monitoring Security Events: Event correlation allows you to effectively troubleshoot issues by understanding the relationship between various activities using multiple event correlations and alerts you as and when it encounters a security threat.
Threat Remediation: Active responses help you in responding timely to policy violations and troubleshooting issues. Some key active responses include:
Delete User Account and User Group
Block IP address
Log Off User
Restart/Shutdown Machine
Disable USB devices
Event forensics help you identify suspicious behavior patterns on your network.
| Cyber_Attack |
Magento vulnerability allows an attacker to create administrative user | https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/Magento-vulnerability-Administrative-User_13.html | It seems you cannot go a day without hearing about someone or some group hacking a website or stealing credit card and other sensitive data from e-commerce sites.
The Market of E-commerce is at its boom, and that provides even more opportunities to hackers. There are many readymade e-commerce platforms available on the Internet, that are easy to install and easy to manage at no extra cost and 'Magento' is one of the most popular out of them.
Recently security researchers at Securatary have reported a critical cross-store vulnerability in the Magento platform that lets attackers to escalation privilege by creating an administrative user on any 'Gostorego' online store.
The authentication bypass vulnerability left 200,000 merchants data vulnerable to hackers before it was patched. To exploit the flaw, an attacker only needed to modify the HOST header to the URI of the target account in the GET request.
They dubbed it as "Stealth mode", allow the attacker to steal store credits and gift coupons, change the price of products and also can manipulate a number of other things in more than 20,000 web stores. "All these requests however "impersonate" the store owner account so action are logged as this user and does not look so suspicious." they said.
To demonstrate the vulnerability security researcher has used Burp Suite, which easily allows an attacker to capture the login request, change the host entry in the header, and all other facilities for adding a new user in targeted store.
The Security Company has reported the vulnerability to eBay, who own the Magento project and hence patched.
| Vulnerability |
London Stock Exchange website gets hacked with Malware Ads ! | https://thehackernews.com/2011/03/london-stock-exchange-website-gets.html | London Stock Exchange website gets hacked with Malware Ads !
THE LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE (LSE) website has been bombarded with fake insecurity software adverts that point to malware.
It seems that dodgy security ads have been unknowingly hosted at the LSE website for at least a few months. An analysis of the website revealed that 363 pages had unwittingly hosted the malicious ads over a 90 day period.
The LSE told the BBC that the website has now been given a clean bill of health and it suspects that adverts provided by a third party were responsible for the malware.
Insecurity expert Paul Mutton ran analyses on the website after clicking on the dodgy links yesterday. Apparently the target website was blocked by Firefox but Mutton got infected through Google's Chrome web browser, in which he was hit with a ridiculous number of pop up ads.
Using Google's safe browsing scheme to scan for suspicious code, Mutton found that the LSE website had been listed as hosting dodgy adverts six times in 90 days.
Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley concurred with Mutton that the LSE website had been salted with malware advertising.
"Our suspicion would be that it was the third-party advertising network running via the site that delivered the malware," he told the BBC.
The LSE has not had a good technology day for some time now. Last year the INQUIRER reported that the LSE saw significant stock losses after postponing a new trading system due to glitches created by sabotaged software.
Then earlier this month the LSE and the Nasdaq stock exchange both fell victim to hackers who managed to invade their systems.
| Malware |
New Phishing attack targets Italian Postal and Financial service again | https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/new-phishing-attack-targets-italian.html | A phishing attack is a complex combination of technology and psychology. There are numerous ways in which people are being made fools and they can be conned by hitting on unsecured website links.
Sophos experts detected this week an intriguing case of phishing against the Italian postal service Poste Italiane, the scheme attracted the researcher's attention due the reuse of an old social engineering trick.
The brand Poste Italiane includes postal, Financial and payment services in its product portfolio and was considered top brand victims by recent F-Secure Threat report.
The number of attacks against Poste Italiane is remarkable, the purpose is always to induce its customers into unwittingly submitting their credentials to fake login sites.
In the recent attack criminals sent the classic email containing an HTML attachment which the recipient is enticed into opening.
"To activate the "Security web Postepay " you need to:- Download the attachment, open it in the browser and follow the steps requested."
The message informs the victim that attached file is password protected and provide the passcode in the body of the email: "To protect your personal information, the attached file is protected by a password. Your word is unique: A2345L90"
When user tries to open the attachment a dialog box is prompted to ask for the password:
Let's see the source code for the attachment :
It is a very simple JavaScript that requests the user's password, if the victim inserts the correct one (A2345L90 in this case), the password provided is used as a key to decode an embedded string and written back to the page. The returned code loads the phish page via the frame, which references a bit.ly shortened URL.
The smart aspect of this attack is the use of a password protected attachment, a technique already seen in the past by security firms. The use of this technique for phishing attack is probably motivated by following needs:
To avoid defense mechanism that scans HTML content.
As a social engineering trick, users could be conditioned by the presence of the password that provides a false sense of security and credibility to the victims.
Be aware ... Cybercrime never sleeps ;-)
| Cyber_Attack |
A Second Hacker Group May Have Also Breached SolarWinds, Microsoft Says | https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/a-second-hacker-group-may-have-also.html | As the probe into the SolarWinds supply chain attack continues, new digital forensic evidence has brought to light that a separate threat actor may have been abusing the IT infrastructure provider's Orion software to drop a similar persistent backdoor on target systems.
"The investigation of the whole SolarWinds compromise led to the discovery of an additional malware that also affects the SolarWinds Orion product but has been determined to be likely unrelated to this compromise and used by a different threat actor," Microsoft 365 research team said on Friday in a post detailing the Sunburst malware.
What makes the newly revealed malware, dubbed "Supernova," different is that unlike the Sunburst DLL, Supernova ("app_web_logoimagehandler.ashx.b6031896.dll") is not signed with a legitimate SolarWinds digital certificate, signaling that the compromise may be unrelated to the previously disclosed supply chain attack.
In a standalone write-up, researchers from Palo Alto Networks said the Supernova malware is compiled and executed in-memory, permitting the attacker to bypass endpoint detection and response (EDR) systems and "deploy full-featured – and presumably sophisticated – .NET programs in reconnaissance, lateral movement and other attack phases."
How the Sunburst Backdoor Operates
The discovery is yet another indication that in addition to being a lucrative infection vector for threat actors, the breach of SolarWinds — which cast a wide net of 18,000 companies and government agencies — had been executed with a far broader scope and extraordinary sophistication.
The adversaries used what's called a supply chain attack, exploiting SolarWinds Orion network management software updates the company distributed between March and June of this year to plant malicious code in a DLL file (aka Sunburst or Solorigate) on the targets' servers that's capable of stealthily gathering critical information, running remote commands, and exfiltrating the results to an attacker-controlled server.
Analysis of the Solorigate modus operandi has also revealed that the campaign chose to steal data only from a select few of thousands of victims, opting to escalate their attacks based on intel amassed during an initial reconnaissance of the target environment for high-value accounts and assets.
The escalation involves the predefined command-and-control (C2) server — a now-sinkholed domain called "avsvmcloud[.]com" — responding to the infected system with a second C2 server that allows the Sunburst backdoor to run specific commands for privilege escalation exploration, credential theft, and lateral movement.
The fact that the compromised DLL file is digitally signed implies a compromise of the company's software development or distribution pipeline, with evidence suggesting that the attackers have been conducting a dry run of the campaign as early as October 2019.
The October files did not have a backdoor embedded in them in the way that subsequent software updates SolarWinds Orion customers downloaded in the spring of 2020 did — rather, it was mainly used to test if the modifications showed up in the newly released updates as expected.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), in an alert last week, said it found evidence of initial infection vectors using flaws other than the SolarWinds software.
Cisco, VMware, and Deloitte Confirm Malicious Orion Installations
Cybersecurity firms Kaspersky and Symantec have said they each identified 100 customers who downloaded the trojanized package containing the Sunburst backdoor, with the latter finding traces of a second-stage payload called Teardrop in a small number of organizations.
The specific number of infected victims remains unknown at this time, but it has steadily increased since cybersecurity firm FireEye revealed it had been breached via SolarWinds's software early this month. So far, several US government agencies and private companies, including Microsoft, Cisco, Equifax, General Electric, Intel, NVIDIA, Deloitte, and VMware have reported finding the malware on its servers.
"Following the SolarWinds attack announcement, Cisco Security immediately began our established incident response processes," Cisco said in a statement to The Hacker News via email.
"We have isolated and removed Orion installations from a small number of lab environments and employee endpoints. At this time, there is no known impact to Cisco products, services, or to any customer data. We continue to investigate all aspects of this evolving situation with the highest priority."
FireEye was the first to expose the wide-ranging espionage campaign on December 8 after discovering that the threat actor had stolen its arsenal of Red Team penetration testing tools, making it so far the only instance where the attackers escalated access thus far. No foreign governments have announced compromises of their own systems.
Although media reports have cited it to be the work of APT29, Russia has denied involvement in the hacking campaign. Neither have cybersecurity companies and researchers from FireEye, Microsoft, and Volexity attributed these attacks to the threat actor.
| Cyber_Attack |
Cybersecurity Webinar — SolarWinds Sunburst: The Big Picture | https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/cybersecurity-webinar-solarwinds.html | The SolarWinds Sunburst attack has been in the headlines since it was first discovered in December 2020.
As the so-called layers of the onion are peeled back, additional information regarding how the vulnerability was exploited, who was behind the attack, who is to blame for the attack, and the long-term ramifications of this type of supply chain vulnerabilities continue to be actively discussed.
Cybersecurity company Cynet is taking a needed step back to provide a full picture of the SolarWinds attack from start to finish in an upcoming webinar, "Lessons Learned from the SolarWinds SUNBURST Attack."
Information regarding many aspects of the attack has been coming out in pieces, but we haven't yet seen this type of comprehensive overview of the technical steps behind the full attack, as well as clear recommendations for protecting against similar future attacks.
And this is precisely what's needed so security professionals can gain insights on the attack tactics, technologies, and processes to apply the appropriate strategic defense measures to prevent being a victim of targeted supply chain attacks.
Evil, Yet Impressive
From their first stealthy access to the Solarwinds environment in September 2019, the hackers brilliantly staged and carried out an attack that ultimately led to the compromise of systems in over 40 government agencies, including the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the US agency responsible for nuclear weapons. Targets in other countries, including Canada, Belgium, Britain, and Israel, were also hit.
The Cynet webinar unpacks the attack to explain the build process used by the attackers and then highlights the capabilities of the Sunburst, Teardrop, and Raindrop malware used in the attack.
Then, Cynet reviews the clever "kill switch" capabilities built into the backdoor to help ensure that it would not be discovered by security analysts.
Also, the webinar discusses the many new vulnerabilities that were exposed in SolarWinds' software and their ramifications.
A Look Forward
With a full understanding of how the attack was carried out, we can then determine whether we're likely to see these types of supply chain attacks proliferate and whether nation-states are already targeting key suppliers.
Unfortunately, in a field where success begets success, it's all too certain that similar attack approaches are actively underway somewhere. Cynet also shares their perspective on this topic during the webinar.
Given that most companies do rely on third-party providers for much of their core software, what should they do to protect themselves? Especially given that these companies have little choice but to continue their use of third-party software that could potentially be weaponized, despite the best efforts of the third-party providers to protect themselves.
Cynet provides guidance on defense measures that should be applied to ensure you're not a victim of a supply chain attack even though you have no visibility or control over your supplier's security. It's important that companies come to realize that these trusted third-party relationships can, and have been, compromised. And action must be taken now.
Register for the webinar here
| Cyber_Attack |
Several Popular Beauty Camera Apps Caught Stealing Users' Photos | https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/beauty-camera-android-apps.html | Just because an app is available on Google Play Store doesn't mean that it is a legitimate app. Despite so many efforts by Google, some fake and malicious apps do sneak in and land millions of unaware users on the hunting ground of scammers and hackers.
Cybersecurity firm Trend Micro uncovered at least 29 devious photo apps that managed to make its way onto Google Play Store and have been downloaded more than 4 million times before Google removed them from its app store.
The mobile apps in question disguised as photo editing and beauty apps purporting to use your mobile phone's camera to take better pictures or beautify the snaps you shoot, but were found including code that performs malicious activities on their users' smartphone.
Three of the rogue apps—Pro Camera Beauty, Cartoon Art Photo and Emoji Camera—have been downloaded more than a million times each, with Artistic Effect Filter being installed over 500,000 times and another seven apps in the list over 100,000 times.
Once installed, some of these apps would push full-screen advertisements on victim's device for fraudulent or pornographic content every time the infected phone is unlocked, and some would even redirect victims to phishing sites in an attempt to steal their personal information by tricking them into believing they have won a contest.
29 Fake Android Apps – Ones to Look Out For
Another group of camera apps that specifically meant to beautify photos were actually found including malicious code that uploads user's photos to an external remote server controlled by the app maker.
However, instead of displaying a final result with the edited photo, the app serves users with a fake update prompt in nine different languages which lead, again, to a phishing site.
"The authors can collect the photos uploaded in the app, and possibly use them for malicious purposes — for example as fake profile pics in social media," Trend Micro researchers wrote in a blog post.
In an attempt to hide their activities, some of these apps used various methods, including hiding the app icon from the drawer/launcher, which would make it more difficult for regular users to spot and uninstall the offending apps.
After being made aware of the malicious apps, Google removed them from its Play Store, but this is unlikely to prevent malicious apps from plaguing the Android app store in the future.
Android malware continues to evolve with more sophisticated and never-seen-before capabilities with every passing day, and spotting them on Google Play Store doesn't come up as a surprise.
The best way to prevent yourself from falling victim to such fishy applications in the future is always to download apps from trusted brands only, even when downloading from the official app store.
Moreover, look at the app reviews left by other users before downloading any app and avoid those that mention any suspicious behavior or unwanted pop-ups after installing.
Last but not least, always keep a good antivirus app on your Android device that can detect and block such malicious activities before they can infect your device, and keep them up-to-date.
| Malware |
Instagram Suffers Data Breach! Hacker Stole Contact Info of High-Profile Users | https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/instagram-breach.html | Instagram has recently suffered a possibly serious data breach with hackers gaining access to the phone numbers and email addresses for many "high-profile" users.
The 700 million-user-strong, Facebook-owned photo sharing service has currently notified all of its verified users that an unknown hacker has accessed some of their profile data, including email addresses and phone numbers, using a bug in Instagram.
The flaw actually resides in Instagram's application programming interface (API), which the service uses to communicate with other apps.
Although the company did not reveal any details about the Instagram's API flaw, it assured its users that the bug has now been patched and its security team is further investigating the incident.
"We recently discovered that one or more individuals obtained unlawful access to a number of high-profile Instagram users' contact information—specifically email address and phone number—by exploiting a bug in an Instagram API," Instagram said in a statement.
"No account passwords were exposed. We fixed the bug swiftly and are running a thorough investigation."
Instagram declined to name the high-profile users targeted in the breach, but the news comes two days after some unknown hacker hijacked most followed Instagram account belonged to Selena Gomez and posted her ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber's nude photographs.
Selena's Instagram account with over 125 Million followers was restored later in the day and the photos were removed.
However, Instagram did not mention if the recent data breach was related to Selena's hacked account.
With email addresses and phone numbers in their hands, the hackers next step could be used the information in tandem with social engineering techniques in an effort to gain access to verified users' Instagram accounts to embarrass them.
The company notified all verified users of the issue via an email and also encouraged them to be cautious if they receive suspicious or unrecognised phone calls, text messages, or emails.
Instagram users are also highly recommended to enable two-factor authentication on your accounts and always secure your accounts with a strong and different password.
Also, avoid clicking on any suspicious link or attachment you received via an email and providing your personal or financial information without verifying the source properly.
| Data_Breaches |
Download: The State of Security Breach Protection 2020 Survey Results | https://thehackernews.com/2020/01/data-breach-protection-survey.html | What are the key considerations security decision-makers should take into account when designing their 2020 breach protection?
To answer this, we polled 1,536 cybersecurity professionals in The State of Breach Protection 2020 survey (Download the full survey here) to understand the common practices, prioritization, and preferences of the organization today in protecting themselves from breaches.
Security executives face significant challenges when confronting the evolving threat landscape.
For example:
What type of attacks pose the greatest risk, and what security products would best address them?
Is it better to build a strong team in-house, outsource the entire security operation, or search for a sweet spot between the two?
What type and level of automation should be introduced into the breach protection workflows?
The State of Breach Protection 2020 survey provides insights into these questions and others.
Here are a few of the insights the survey unveils:
1) Lack of consolidation is a protection inhibitor — Organizations that currently deploy advanced security products report that maintaining a multi-product security stack (especially in advanced security product groups) is the main obstacle in reaching the desired protection.
2) Most organizations are prioritizing advanced protection projects in 2020 — The majority of organizations that currently deploy a basic security stack of AV, firewall, and email protection plan to add EDR/EPP, Network Traffic Analysis, or SIEM and are planning to do so in 2020.
3) Deployment is the Achilles heel of endpoint protection — Only a small portion of organizations reported on deploying EDR/EPP on more than 85% of their endpoints with no deployment or maintenance issues. Because in many cases, EPP/EDR is regarded as the main mean against advanced attacks, this is an alarming figure.
4) Advanced threat protection still involves a high volume of attended alerts — All organizations that deploy SIEM, EDR/EPP, Network Traffic Analysis, UEBA, or Deception products state that over 25% percent of alerts are left unattended on a daily basis.
5) Response orchestration beats automation — While a significant number of the organizations we polled orchestrate their IR operations from a centralized interface, only a small portion introduce automation to their remediation workflows.
6) Organizations have mixed feelings regarding security outsourcing — While the security skills gap compels organizations to outsource the more advanced portion of their security operations, there is still a strong inclination to keep things in-house, especially in regard to active attack remediation in their environment.
The State of Breach Protection 2020 survey crowdsources the wisdom of numerous security professionals and decision-makers, enabling CISOs to make better informed and data-driven decisions, by zooming out to see the wide perspective of breach protection's best practices and major trends.
Download The State of Breach Protection 2020 survey report here.
| Data_Breaches |
37-Year-Old 'Syrian Electronic Army' Hacker Pleads Guilty in US court | https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/syrian-electronic-army-hacker.html | One of the FBI's Most Wanted Hackers who was arrested in Germany earlier this year has pleaded guilty to federal charges for his role in a scheme that hacked computers and targeted the US government, foreign governments, and multiple US media outlets.
Peter Romar, 37, pleaded guilty Wednesday in a federal court in Alexandria to felony charges of conspiring to receive extortion proceeds and to illegally access computers in his role as a member of the infamous hacking group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), the Department of Justice (DoJ) announced.
Romar was previously extradited from Germany on request of the United States.
"Cybercriminals cannot hide from justice," said U.S. Attorney Dana J. Boente for the Eastern District of Virginia. "No matter where they are in the world, the United States will vigorously pursue those who commit crimes against U.S. citizens and hold them accountable for their actions."
In March, the US charged three men it believed were involved in cyber-attacks carried out the Syrian Electronic Army. Romar was already arrested while the other two - Ahmad Umar Agha (aka The Pro), 22 and Firas Dardar (aka The Shadow), 27 - were believed to be in Syria.
The FBI has also offered a reward of $100,000 for any information that leads to the arrest of Agha and Dardar, who were allegedly involved in hacking Associated Press Twitter account in April 2013 and spreading a false rumor claiming that the White House had been bombed, injuring President Obama, which caused a temporary stock market dip.
All three SEA hackers were allegedly engaged in a long-running cyber-propaganda campaign in support of the Syrian President Bashar al‑Assad.
The group used "spear-phishing" tactics to target computer systems of the US government, foreign organizations, media outlets and other private-sector entities that the SEA deemed as having been antagonistic toward the Syrian Government.
Between 2011 and 2013, SEA targeted multiple entities including the Associated Press, Microsoft, Reuters, CNN, Time, The Daily Dot, The Washington Post, Vice, Human Rights Watch, E! Online, Harvard University, NASA, US Marine, and The Onion, among others.
Dardar and Romar are accused of hacking into the computer systems of businesses for their personal profit. They hacked into victims' computers and then threaten them to damage computers, and delete/sell the data unless they were paid a ransom.
"If a victim could not make extortion payments to the conspiracy's Syrian bank accounts due to sanctions targeting Syria, Romar acted as an intermediary in Germany to evade those sanctions," the DoJ said.
Romar faces up to 5 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on 21st October, while co-defendant Dardar still remains at large and is believed to be in Syria.
| Cyber_Attack |
Flaw in Popular μTorrent Software Lets Hackers Control Your PC Remotely | https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/torrent-download-software.html | If you have installed world's most popular torrent download software, μTorrent, then you should download its latest version for Windows as soon as possible.
Google's security researcher at Project Zero discovered a serious remote code execution vulnerability in both the 'μTorrent desktop app for Windows' and newly launched 'μTorrent Web' that allows users to download and stream torrents directly into their web browser.
μTorrent Classic and μTorrent Web apps run in the background on the Windows machine and start a locally hosted HTTP RPC server on ports 10000 and 19575, respectively, using which users can access its interfaces over any web browser.
However, Project Zero researcher Tavis Ormandy found that several issues with these RPC servers could allow remote attackers to take control of the torrent download software with little user interaction.
According to Ormandy, uTorrent apps are vulnerable to a hacking technique called the "domain name system rebinding" that could allow any malicious website a user visits to execute malicious code on user's computer remotely.
To execute DNS rebinding attack, one can simply create a malicious website with a DNS name that resolves to the local IP address of the computer running a vulnerable uTorrent app.
"This requires some simple DNS rebinding to attack remotely, but once you have the secret you can just change the directory torrents are saved to, and then download any file anywhere writable," Ormandy explained.
Proof-of-Concept Exploits for uTorrent Software Released Publicly
Ormandy also provided proof-of-concept exploits for μTorrent Web and μTorrent desktop (1 and 2), which are capable of passing malicious commands through the domain in order to get them to execute on the targeted computer.
Last month, Ormandy demonstrated same attack technique against the Transmission BitTorrent app.
Ormandy reported BitTorrent of the issues with the uTorrent client in November 2017 with a 90-days disclosure deadline, but a patch was made public on Tuesday—that's almost 80 days after the initial disclosure.
What's more? The re-issued new security patches the same day after Ormandy found that his exploits continued to work successfully in the default configuration with a small tweak.
"This issue is still exploitable," Ormandy said. "The vulnerability is now public because a patch is available, and BitTorrent have already exhausted their 90 days anyway."
"I see no other option for affected users but to stop using uTorrent Web and contact BitTorrent and request a comprehensive patch."
Patch your uTorrent Software NOW!
The company assured its users that all vulnerabilities reported by Ormandy it two of its products had been addressed with the release of:
μTorrent Stable 3.5.3.44358
BitTorrent Stable 7.10.3.44359
μTorrent Beta 3.5.3.44352
μTorrent Web 0.12.0.502
All users are urged to update their software immediately.
| Malware |
LPG Gas Company Leaked Details, Aadhaar Numbers of 6.7 Million Indian Customers | https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/indane-aadhaar-leak.html | Why would someone bother to hack a so-called "ultra-secure encrypted database that is being protected behind 13 feet high and 5 feet thick walls," when one can simply fetch a copy of the same data from other sources.
French security researcher Baptiste Robert, who goes by the pseudonym "Elliot Alderson" on Twitter, with the help of an Indian researcher, who wants to remain anonymous, discovered that the official website of popular state-owned LPG gas company Indane is leaking personal details of its millions of customers, including their Aadhaar numbers.
This is not the first time when an unprotected third-party database has leaked Aadhaar details of Indian citizens, which is a unique number assigned to each citizen as part of India's biometric identity programme maintained by the government's Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).
Earlier this week an anonymous Indian researcher initially discovered a loophole in the Indane's online dealers portal that could allow anyone to access hundreds of thousands of customers data associated with their respective dealers without requiring any authentication.
"Due to a lack of authentication in the local dealers portal, Indane is leaking the names, addresses and the Aadhaar numbers of their customers," Robert wrote in a blog post on Medium late Monday.
To avoid getting into trouble from Indian authorities, the researcher shared his findings with Robert, who previously gained fame for exposing numerous Aadhaar-related leaks and security weaknesses in other Indian website and services.
After analyzing the issue, Robert discovered that attackers can actually fetch millions of Indian citizens data from the Indane website if they know every dealer's username, which he later found using another vulnerability in the Indane's official mobile app.
The mobile app vulnerability allowed Robert to find 11,062 valid dealer IDs, out of which he used 9490 IDs against the online dealers portal to fetch personal data of 5.8 million users, including their Aadhaar numbers, names and residential addresses.
"Unfortunately, Indane probably blocked my IP, so I didn't test the remaining 1572 dealers. By doing some basic math we can estimate the final number of affected customers around 6,791,200," Robert says.
Robert shared his findings with Indane, an LPG brand owned by the Indian Oil Corporation, on 15th February, and made the public disclosure on 19th February after receiving no response from the company.
Official Response From Indane LPG Company
In response to this news, Indian Oil Corp Ltd, who owns Indane, tweeted a statement saying, "There is no leak of Aadhaar data through Indane website."
In an attached statement, instead of acknowledging the breach of its customers' data, the company tried to defend Aadhaar and Indian Government by saying:
"IndianOil in its software captures only the Aadhaar number which is required for LPG subsidy transfer. No other Aadhaar related details are captured by IndianOil. Therefore, leakage of Aadhaar data is not possible through us."
"In the past, Oil Marketing Companies on time to time basis were hosting the consumption of subsidized LPG refills by consumers, multiple connections list having customer information like consumer number, name, LPG ID and address, in public domain (transparency portal) in their respective websites which was available for social audits."
"There is no Aadhaar number hosted on this website."
However, The Hacker News has reviewed the sample database provided by Robert and can confirm that the website also hosts Aadhaar numbers of its customers, not directly displayed on the web page, but in the URL hyperlinked to each customer's ID.
| Data_Breaches |
Rise in website Defacement attacks by Hackers around the World | https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/rise-in-website-defacement-attacks-by.html | Last week we noticed a rise in cyber attacks particularly - website Defacement attacks on many governments and organizations of different countries by the hackers around the world.
Targeted countries include Singapore, Mexico, Philippines, Australia, Egypt, United States, Syria and many more. Out of all these targets, most controversial were Philippines and Australia, hacked by Activist group Anonymous.
Last Sunday, Anonymous hackers from Indonesia defaced hundreds of websites belonging to the Australian Government, saying the action was in response to reports of spying by Australia. The websites, defaced with a message reading "Stop Spying on Indonesia". We have shared the list of all targeted website on a pastebin note.
In a separate incident, Anonymous hackers defaced more than 38 Philippine Government websites, and called on the public to support an anti-corruption protest "Million Mask March" at the Batasang Pambansa on November 5. "The government, in many ways, has failed its Filipino citizens," the hackers added. "We have been deprived of things which they have promised to give; what our late heroes have promised us to give."
National and local government agencies and the website of the Office of the Ombudsman, Philippine Embassy in Seoul, Insurance Commission, Vigan and Cardon Cities Official Website, 3rd District of Laguna were among those hacked by Philippines hackers.
On the other end, Algerian hacker named as DZ27 hacked and defaced three Egyptian government websites. Targeted websites include the Information System Institute for Egyptian Armed Forces, a subdomain of the Armed Forces and website of Tourism Development Authority Egypt.
Anonymous hacker who went by the moniker "The Messiah" breached a blog linked to Singapore's leading newspaper 'Straits Times' and the hacker claimed a journalist published a "very misleading" blog post about a threat purportedly issued by Anonymous against Singapore's government to protest contentious online licensing regulations.
A message left on the blog page demanded that the journalist resign or apologize within 48 hours to the citizens of Singapore for trying to mislead them. Hackers also accused the government of extending censorship to the Internet in a country where the media have long been tightly supervised.
In a separate incident, The website of the Seletar Airport in Singapore was also hacked by an unknown hacker, and the defaced page designed with a black and green background with a skull wearing a hood in the middle. But it was fixed within half an hour.
The cyber attack on Syrian, where three Government websites from Syria and around thousands of commercial websites were defaced by Syrian hackers introducing themselves as RBG Homs, Silent Injector and Syrian Hexor. The hack is a part of an operation called #opSyria and complete list of hacked websites published online at pastebin.
Another separate attack, where an Anonymous hacker defaced the website of a law firm that defended a US Marine who faced charges in connection with the 2005 killing of 24 Iraqi civilians. Puckett served as the lead defense lawyer for Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, who faced a US military court martial last month in connection with the killings in the Iraqi town of Haditha. Hackers claimed that they have published online 3GB Data of private email messages of attorneys Neal Puckett and Haytham Faraj.
Also, Hundreds of Mexican web sites defaced by a hacker named as ExpirED brain Cyber army. The complete list of targeted websites is listed in a pastebin note. Here the reason of the attack is not clear, neither mentioned by the hacker.
Stay tuned to The Hacker News for more latest Hacking news updates.
| Cyber_Attack |
Prison Locker Ransomware, an upcoming malware threat in 2014 | https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/power-locker-ransomware-upcoming_3.html | Ransomware is one of the most blatant and obvious criminal's money making schemes out there. Ransomware malware was mostly known by the people when Cryptolocker comes into play. At the time when readers were getting aware of ransomware, Cryptolocker threat had touched the peak and other money motivated cyber criminals have started developing their own Cryptolocker versions.
Two hackers going by the name of 'gyx' and 'Porphyry' (admin of maldev.net hacking forum) are advertizing a new ramsomware malware tool-kit called "Prison Locker" on various hacking forums with tutorials.
They have developed the Prison Locker a.k.a Power Locker ramsomware toolkit in C/C++ programming language, proving a GUI version with customizable features for customers.
The Ransomware is using BlowFish encryption to encrypt all available files on the victim's hard disk and shared drives except .exe, .dll, .sys, other system files.
During encryption it will generate unique BlowFish key for each file and then encrypts the keys further with RSA-2048 encryption and will send victim's system information back to the command-and-control center of the attacker.
As the developer mention in a Pastebin post, the Command-and-control center allows an attacker to set the ramsomware warning time duration, ransom amount, payment mode and also allow decrypting the files on the victim system after payment received.
The addition features added to Prison Locker:
The malware is able to detect Virtual Machine, Sandbox mode, and debugging environments.
It will also disable Windows key & Escape key to prevent unwanted user actions.
Also can kill taskmgr.exe, regedit.exe, cmd.exe, explorer.exe, and msconfig.exe processes to prevent unwanted user actions.
Malware can startup in both regular boot mode and safe boot under HKCU.
A Malware Research Group is following the development of this new Malware threat and has published his investigation report on his blog i.e. MalwareMustDie.
He has investigated the identity of the Ransomware developers at his own level, could be a free tip for Law Enforcement agencies too.
Information obtained from screenshots provided by MalwareMustDie blog post:
ICQ: 668841378
Jabber ID: [email protected], [email protected]
Personal Blog: https://wenhsl.blogspot.in
Gmail: [email protected]
TorChat: yratfipjnd5bcxai Twitter: @wenhsl
Interestingly, His Twitter Bio is, 'Security enthusiast. Novice infosec/malware researcher and cybercrime analyst. C/C++ and currently polishing up my MASM' and Country mentioned as U.S.
He has also mentioned in an advertising post, that tool-kit will be available soon for the sale on various hacking forums and markets at just $100. If you don't take proper precautions, you may lose the information stored on your computer.
The people who are calling themselves Cyber Security Researchers whose work is to protect others from such threats are now self participating in the Cyber Crimes just for the monetary purpose. As mentioned earlier that the NSA is spying over Non-American people i.e. Foreigners.
But now it's the high time to think that what about the cyber criminals who are operating from the USA, could be the mastermind behind major Bitcoins thefts, banking Trojans, exploit kits, Cryptolocker.. Serious threats?
| Malware |
New Approach to automatically detecting bugs and vulnerabilities in Linux | https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/new-approach-to-automatically-detecting.html | New Approach to automatically detecting bugs and vulnerabilities in Linux
Australian researcher Silvio Cesare, PhD student at Deakin University has released a tool capable of automatically detecting bugs and vulnerabilities in embedded Linux libraries. Developers may "embed" or "clone" code from 3rd party projects. This can be either statically link against external library or maintaining an internal copy of a library's source or fork a copy of a library's source.
The Approach of this tools is that if a source package has the other package's filenames as a subset, it is embedded, Packages that share files are related. A graph of relationships has related packages as cliques. Graph Theory is used to perform the analysis.
Linux vendors have previously used laborious manual techniques to find holes in libraries. Debian alone manually tracks some 420 embedded packages, Cesare said at Ruxcon 2011. Silvio's tool also automates identifying if embedded packages have outstanding vulnerabilities that have not been patched. Using this system, over 30 previously unknown vulnerabilities were identified in Linux distributions. These results are now starting to be used by vendors to track embedded packages.
They Found five packages in Debian and Fedora that were vulnerable to a buffer overflow found in libtiff. Mozilla Firefox had embedded libpng and was vulnerable for more than three months after the flaw was discovered. While about 90 per cent of vulnerabilities produced by the tool were false-positives, Cesare said vetting the results takes seconds and was considerably faster than using manual processes.
Fedora incorporated Cesare's results in an embedded library list database. Cesare said he will publish an academic paper on the subject and plans to similar conduct binary analysis for Windows platforms.
This project is open source and available to download from Github.
| Vulnerability |
North Korea Exploited VPN Flaw to Hack South's Nuclear Research Institute | https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/north-korea-exploited-vpn-flaw-to-hack.html | South Korea's state-run Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) on Friday disclosed that its internal network was infiltrated by suspected attackers operating out of its northern counterpart.
The intrusion is said to have taken place on May 14 through a vulnerability in an unnamed virtual private network (VPN) vendor and involved a total of 13 IP addresses, one of which — "27.102.114[.]89" — has been previously linked to a state-sponsored threat actor dubbed Kimsuky.
KAERI, established in 1959 and situated in the city of Daejeon, is a government-funded research institute that designs and develops nuclear technologies related to reactors, fuel rods, radiation fusion, and nuclear safety.
Following the intrusion, the think tank said it took steps to block the attacker's IP addresses in question and applied necessary security patches to the vulnerable VPN solution. "Currently, the Atomic Energy Research Institute is investigating the subject of the hacking and the amount of damage," the entity said in a statement.
The development comes following a report from SISA Journal, which disclosed the breach, alleging that the agency was attempting to cover up the hack by denying such an incident took place. KAERI attributed it to a "mistake in the response of the working-level staff."
Active since 2012, Kimsuky (aka Velvet Chollima, Black Banshee, or Thallium) is a North Korean threat actor known for its cyber espionage campaigns targeting think tanks and nuclear power operators in South Korea.
Earlier this month, cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes disclosed a wave of attacks undertaken by the adversary to strike high-profile government officials in the country by installing an Android and Windows backdoor called AppleSeed for amassing valuable information.
The targeted entities involved the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador of the Embassy of Sri Lanka to the State, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Nuclear Security Officer, and the Deputy Consul General at Korean Consulate General in Hong Kong, with the aforementioned IP address used for command-and-control (C2) communications.
It is not immediately clear what VPN vulnerability was exploited to breach the network. But it's worth noting that unpatched VPN systems from Pulse Secure, SonicWall, Fortinet FortiOS, and Citrix have been subjected to attacks by multiple threat actors in recent years.
| Cyber_Attack |
Evilnum hackers targeting financial firms with a new Python-based RAT | https://thehackernews.com/2020/09/evilnum-hackers.html | An adversary known for targeting the fintech sector at least since 2018 has switched up its tactics to include a new Python-based remote access Trojan (RAT) that can steal passwords, documents, browser cookies, email credentials, and other sensitive information.
In an analysis published by Cybereason researchers yesterday, the Evilnum group has not only tweaked its infection chain but has also deployed a Python RAT called "PyVil RAT," which possesses abilities to gather information, take screenshots, capture keystrokes data, open an SSH shell and deploy new tools.
"Since the first reports in 2018 through today, the group's TTPs have evolved with different tools while the group has continued to focus on fintech targets," the cybersecurity firm said.
"These variations include a change in the chain of infection and persistence, new infrastructure that is expanding over time, and the use of a new Python-scripted Remote Access Trojan (RAT)" to spy on its infected targets.
Over the last two years, Evilnum has been linked to several malware campaigns against companies across the UK and EU involving backdoors written in JavaScript and C# as well as through tools bought from the Malware-as-a-Service provider Golden Chickens.
Back in July, the APT group was found targeting companies with spear-phishing emails that contain a link to a ZIP file hosted on Google Drive to steal software licenses, customer credit card information, and investments and trading documents.
While the modus operandi of gaining an initial foothold in the compromised system remains the same, the infection procedure has witnessed a major shift.
Besides using spear-phishing emails with fake know your customer (KYC) documents to trick employees of the finance industry into triggering the malware, the attacks have moved away from using JavaScript-based Trojans with backdoor capabilities to a bare-bones JavaScript dropper that delivers malicious payloads hidden in modified versions of legitimate executables in an attempt to escape detection.
"This JavaScript is the first stage in this new infection chain, culminating with the delivery of the payload, a Python written RAT compiled with py2exe that Nocturnus researchers dubbed PyVil RAT," the researchers said.
The multi-process delivery procedure ("ddpp.exe"), upon execution, unpacks shellcode to establish communication with an attacker-controlled server and receive a second encrypted executable ("fplayer.exe") that functions as the next stage downloader to fetch the Python RAT.
"In previous campaigns of the group, Evilnum's tools avoided using domains in communications with the C2, only using IP addresses," the researchers noted. "While the C2 IP address changes every few weeks, the list of domains associated with this IP address keeps growing."
While Evilnum's exact origins still remain unclear, it's evident that their constant improvisation of TTPs has helped them stay under the radar.
As the APT's techniques continue to evolve, it's essential that businesses remain vigilant and employees monitor their emails for phishing attempts and exercise caution when it comes to opening emails and attachments from unknown senders.
| Cyber_Attack |
Facebook Now Pays Hackers for Reporting Security Bugs in 3rd-Party Apps | https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/facebook-apps-bug-bounty.html | Following a series of security mishaps and data abuse through its social media platform, Facebook today expanding its bug bounty program in a very unique way to beef up the security of third-party apps and websites that integrate with its platform.
Last year, Facebook launched "Data Abuse Bounty" program to reward anyone who reports valid events of 3rd-party apps collecting Facebook users' data and passing it off to malicious parties, violating Facebook's revamped data policies.
Apparently, it turns out that most of the time, Facebook users' data that had been misused was exposed in the first place as the result of a vulnerability or security weakness in third-party apps or services.
The Facebook ecosystem contains millions of third-party apps, and unfortunately, very few of them have a vulnerability disclosure program or offer bug bounty rewards to white-hat hackers for responsibly reporting bugs in their codebase.
Because of this communication gap between researchers and the affected app developers, Facebook's security programs for 3rd-party apps and websites were, until now, just limited to "passively observing the vulnerabilities."
Though Facebook already once expanded its bug bounty program for 3rd-party apps late last year, the scheme was only limited to valid report submissions for the exposure of Facebook users' access tokens that allow people to log into another app using Facebook.
Efforts to Encourage Collaboration b/w Hackers and Developers
Now, to encourage third-party app developers to take the security of their apps more seriously and set up a vulnerability disclosure program, Facebook has decided to pay white-hat researchers from its own pocket even if app developers don't have their own bounty program.
"Although these bugs aren't related to our own code, we want researchers to have a clear channel to report these issues if they could lead to our users' data potentially being misused," Facebook says.
"We also want to incentivize researchers to focus on apps, websites, and bug bounty programs that otherwise may not get as much attention or may not have resources to incentivize the bug bounty community."
"By committing to rewarding valid reports about bugs in third-party apps and websites that impact Facebook data, we hope to encourage the security community to engage with more app developers."
In other words, app developers can take advantage of this program by simply setting up their own vulnerability disclosure policy, which would then help researchers to be eligible for finding bugs in their code and claim rewards from Facebook.
That's because a report of a vulnerability in third-party apps submitted to Facebook will only be considered valid when researchers include proof of authorization granted by the third-party developer when submitting their reports to Facebook's bug bounty program.
However, if the third-party developers already have their own bug bounty program, researchers can claim rewards from both parties.
Reward from Facebook will be issued depending upon the potential impact and severity of the responsibly reported vulnerability, with a minimum payout of $500.
Bug bounty programs for data abuse and 3rd-party apps affecting the whole ecosystem are a growing trend in cybersecurity. Most recently, Google also expanded its Pay Store bounty program to reward hackers for finding bugs in any Android app that has more than 100 million downloads.
However, in that case, Google takes responsibility to collaborate with app developers, while Facebook's latest scheme is also a great way to let researchers directly work with third-party developers.
| Vulnerability |
Uroburos Rootkit: Most sophisticated 3-year-old Russian Cyber Espionage Campaign | https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/uroburos-rootkit-most-sophisticated-3.html | The Continuous Growth of spyware, their existence, and the criminals who produce & spread them are increasing tremendously. It's difficult to recognize spyware as it is becoming more complex and sophisticated with time, so is spreading most rapidly as an Internet threat.
Recently, The security researchers have unearthed a very complex and sophisticated piece of malware that was designed to steal confidential data and has ability able to capture network traffic.
The Researchers at the German security company G Data Software, refer the malware as Uroburos, named after an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail, and in correspondence with a string (Ur0bUr()sGotyOu#) lurking deep in the malware's code.
The researchers claimed that the malware may have been active for as long as three years before being discovered and appears to have been created by Russian developers.
Uroburos is a rootkit designed to steal data from secure facilities, has ability to take control of an infected machine, execute arbitrary commands and hide system activities, communicating primarily using peer-to-peer connections in a network it has penetrated to infect new machines within the network, manages to pass back the exfiltrated information back to attackers from infected machines and network data, the researchers explained.
The two main components of Uroburos are - a driver and an encrypted virtual file system, used to disguise its nasty activities and to try to avoid detection. Its driver part is extremely complex and is designed to be very discrete and very difficult to identify.
The malware uses two virtual file systems, one NTFS file system and one FAT file system, and both are stored locally on the infected system and are used as a "workspace" by the attackers, providing a storage space for third-party tools, post-exploitation tools, temporary files and binary output. The virtual file system can't be decrypted without the presence of drivers, according to the Gdata's analysis explained in the PDF.
The driver is needed to decrypt the virtual file systems, to create several hooks to hide its activities, to inject libraries in the users land and to establish and manage some communication channels.
"The development of a framework like Uroburos is a huge investment. The development team behind this malware obviously comprises highly skilled computer experts, as you can infer from the structure and the advanced design of the rootkit. We believe that the team behind Uroburos has continued working on even more advanced variants, which are still to be discovered."
WITH LOVE From RUSSIA: Technical Similarities with the previous malware Agent.BTZ and that the malware Uroburos checks the presence of Agent.BTZ in the system and remains inactive if Agent.BTZ is present, makes the researchers believe that it was designed by the same by the Russian intelligence services, according to G Data analysis.
"Due to many technical details (file name, encryption keys, behavior and more details mentioned in this report), we assume that the group behind Uroburos is the same group that performed a cyberattack against the United States of America in 2008 with a malware called Agent.BTZ," say the researchers. They also added that the reason it is meant to be of the Russian origin is, "Uroburos checks for the presence of Agent.BTZ and remains inactive if it is installed. It appears that the authors of Uroburos speak Russian (the language appears in a sample), which corroborates the relation to Agent.BTZ. Furthermore, according to public newspaper articles, this fact, the usage of Russian, also applied for the authors of Agent.BTZ."
In 2008, USB and Removable storage drives placed on hold in the U.S. Army facilities after the spread of Agent.BTZ worm. The USB stick contained malicious code was trying to keep on multiplying further and infected the military's network.
The attacks carried out with Uroburos are targeting government institutions, research institutions, intelligence agencies, nation states, research institutions or companies dealing with sensitive information as well as similar high-profile targets. The oldest drivers identified by the researchers was compiled in 2011 is the evidence that the malware was created around three years ago and was undetected.
"The Uroburos rootkit is one of the most advanced rootkits we have ever analyzed in this Environment," the G Data concluded.
The team behind the development of the malware Uroburos has developed an even more sophisticated framework, which still remains undiscovered, the researchers believe. Many infection vectors are conceivable. E.g. Spear phishing, drive-by-infections, USB sticks, or social engineering attacks.
| Malware |
Microsoft flaw allows USB loaded with payload to bypass security controls | https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/microsoft-flaw-allows-usb-loaded-with.html | During March Patch Tuesday of 2013, Microsoft released seven new security bulletins, with four rated as critical, and others as Important. Most interesting one was MS13-027, which is rated as "important" because the attack requires physical access to the vulnerable machine.
This flaw allows anyone with a USB thumb drive loaded with the payload to bypass security controls and access a vulnerable system even if AutoRun is disabled, and the screen is locked. Flaw exposes your Windows PCs to major risk. If you remember Stuxnet, worm was injected to Iran's nuclear program system using USB thumb drive.
Windows typically discovers USB devices when they are inserted or when they change power sources (if they switch from plugged-in power to being powered off of the USB connection itself).
To exploit the vulnerability an attacker could add a maliciously formatted USB device to the system. When the Windows USB device drivers enumerate the device, parsing a specially crafted descriptor, the attacker could cause the system to execute malicious code in the context of the Windows kernel.
Because the vulnerability is triggered during device enumeration, no user intervention is required. In fact, the vulnerability can be triggered when the workstation is locked or when no user is logged in, making this an un-authenticated elevation of privilege for an attacker with casual physical access to the machine.
Microsoft admits the flaw could "open additional avenues of exploitation that do not require direct physical access to the system," once the USB-based exploit is successful.
The vulnerabilities addressed by Microsoft do not include those exploited by security researchers at the recent Pwn2Own hacking competition at the CanSecWest Conference in Vancouver.
| Malware |
Hey, Music Lovers! Last.Fm Hack Leaks 43 Million Account Passwords | https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/lastfm-hacked.html | Another Day, Another Data Breach!
If you love to listen to music online and have an account on Last.fm website, your account details may have compromised in a data breach that leaked more than 43 Million user personal data online.
Last.fm was hacked in March of 2012 and three months after the breach, London-based music streaming service admitted to the incident and issued a warning, encouraging its users to change their passwords.
But now it turns out that the Last.fm data breach was massive, and four years later the stolen data have surfaced in the public.
The copy of the hacked database obtained by the data breach indexing website LeakedSource contained 43,570,999 user records that were originally stolen from Last.fm on March 22, 2012, according to timestamps in the database.
The leaked records include usernames, hashed passwords, email addresses, the date when a user signed up to the website, and ad-related data.
Wait! Have you visited The Hacker News early this week? We reported about the Dropbox massive data breach that had also occurred in 2012, which let hackers get their hands on online cloud storage accounts of more than 68 Million users.
People Are Still So Bad At Picking Passwords
But what makes the Last.fm hack much worse is the weak security measures the website used to store its users' passwords.
Lat.fm stored its users' passwords using MD5 hashing – which has been considered outdated even before 2012 – and that too without any Salt, a random string added to strengthen encrypted passwords that make it more difficult for hackers to crack them.
LeakedSource says it took them just 2 hours to crack 96% of all the passwords included in the Last.fm data dump, which is possible due to the use of an unsalted MD5 hashing system to store passwords.
"This algorithm is so insecure it took us two hours to crack and convert over 96 percent of them to visible passwords," LeakedSource said in its blog post. adding that it recently significantly invested in its own "password cracking capabilities for the benefit of our users."
And guess what? Last.fm's analysis of the password reveals that the most popular passwords users kept securing their accounts were extremely weak.
255,319 people used the phrase 123456
92,652 used 'password' as password
Almost 67,000 used 'lastfm'
Around 64,000 used 123456789
46,000 used 'qwerty'
Almost 36,000 used 'abc123'
LeakedSource added the data into its database; so if you have a Last.fm account, you can check if it has been compromised by searching your data at Leaked Source's search engine.
Last.fm is the latest to join the list of "Mega-Breaches," that revealed in recent months, when hundreds of Millions of online credentials from years-old data breaches on popular social network sites, including LinkedIn, MySpace, VK.com and Tumblr, were sold on the Dark Web.
The takeaway:
Change your passwords for Last.fm account as well as other online accounts immediately, especially if you are using the same password for multiple sites.
Moreover, make use of a good password manager to create complex passwords for different websites and remember them.
We have listed some of the best password managers that could help you understand the importance of password manager as well as choose one according to your requirement.
| Data_Breaches |
Experts uncover a new Banking Trojan targeting Latin American users | https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/experts-uncover-new-banking-trojan.html | Researchers on Tuesday revealed details of a new banking trojan targeting corporate users in Brazil at least since 2019 across various sectors such as engineering, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, finance, transportation, and government.
Dubbed "Janeleiro" by Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET, the malware aims to disguise its true intent via lookalike pop-up windows that are designed to resemble the websites of some of the biggest banks in the country, including Itaú Unibanco, Santander, Banco do Brasil, Caixa Econômica Federal, and Banco Bradesco.
"These pop-ups contain fake forms, aiming to trick the malware's victims into entering their banking credentials and personal information that the malware captures and exfiltrates to its [command-and-control] servers," ESET researchers Facundo Muñoz and Matías Porolli said in a write-up.
This modus operandi is not new to banking trojans. In August 2020, ESET uncovered a Latin American (LATAM) banking trojan called Mekotio that displayed similar fake pop-up windows to its victims in an attempt to entice them into divulging sensitive information.
But Janeleiro stands out for a number of reasons. One, the malware is written in Visual Basic .NET, which the researchers say is a "big deviation" from the Delphi programming language that's usually preferred by the threat actors in the region. It also doesn't rely on custom encryption algorithms or additional layers of obfuscation and even reuses code taken from NjRAT, a rarity among LATAM banking trojans.
The attack commences with a phishing email that purports to be an unpaid invoice, which contains a link that, when clicked, downloads a ZIP file. The archive comes with an MSI installer that loads the main trojan DLL, which subsequently fetches the IP addresses of the command-and-control (C2) servers from a GitHub page apparently created by the malware authors. The last link in the infection chain involves waiting for commands from the C2 server.
Thus in the event, a user visits the website of a banking entity of interest, Janeleiro connects to the C2 server and dynamically displays the fraudulent pop-up windows, and captures the keystrokes and other information entered in the fake forms.
ESET said it discovered four versions of Janeleiro between September 2019 to March 2021.
This is not the first time banking trojans have been spotted in the wild that have singled out Brazilian users. Last year, Kaspersky detailed at least four malware families — Guildma, Javali, Melcoz, and Grandoreiro — which were found to target financial institutions in Brazil, Latin America, and Europe.
Then earlier this January, ESET revealed a new Delphi-based banking trojan named "Vadokrist" that was found to target Brazil exclusively while sharing similarities with other malware families like Amavaldo, Casbaneiro, Grandoreiro, and Mekotio.
"Janeleiro follows the unique blueprint for the core implementation of the fake pop-up windows as many LATAM banking trojans, this does not seem to be a coincidence or inspiration: this actor employs and distributes Janeleiro sharing the same infrastructure as some of the most prominent of these active malware families," the researchers concluded.
| Malware |
Trojan & Botnet Activities Increased in February-March ! | https://thehackernews.com/2011/03/trojan-botnet-activities-increased-in.html | Trojans were the most prolific malware threat in February-March, and collaboration seems to be the name of the game in malware development and distribution.
Trojan-based attacks continue to be the biggest malware threat in February, but PDF exploits aren't far behind, according to several security reports.
About 1 in 290 e-mails in February were malicious, making the month one of the most prolific periods for the threats, according to Symantec's February 2011 MessageLabs Intelligence Report. The global ratio of spam in e-mail traffic was 81.3 percent, an increase of 2.7 percent since January, the report found. The recent decline in spam appears to have reversed for the time being, according to the report.
There was a lot of botnet activity in February, and the perpetrators appeared to be working together to some extent to distribute Trojans, according to Symantec. There were signs of integration across Zeus, Bredolab and SpyEye, as techniques associated with one malware family were being used by others, Symantec said in the report.
The attacks were well-timed and used carefully targeted techniques, suggesting a "common origin" for these infected messages. One day, the messages would be propagating mainly Zeus variants, followed by a day dedicated to distributing SpyEye variants and later with Bredolab, in an alternating pattern, according to Paul Wood, MessageLabs Intelligence senior analyst. By the middle of the month, the variants propagated simultaneously with an advanced package that evaded traditional antivirus detection, he said.
All the attacks used a .ZIP archive attachment containing malicious code. About 1.5 percent of blocked malware had malicious .ZIP attachments, and 79.2 percent of those files were connected to the Bredolab, Zeus and SpyEye attacks, researchers said.
Contrary to recent belief, Bredolab is not dead, as MessageLabs identified at least 40 variants of malware associated with Bredolab in February, accounting for at least 10 percent of e-mail-borne malware blocked by MessageLabs Intelligence that month.
SpyEye also appeared on FortiNet's Threat Landscape report for the first time, signaling new activity and techniques.
"We're likely to see similar ongoing activity by the SpyEye group, such as routine obfuscation of their data and command and control transmissions," said Derek Manky, senior security strategist at Fortinet. "SpyEye developers are also working to make their product more efficient in terms of management and automation, which is evidenced by the bot's new Automatic Transfer System."
Both GFI Software and Symantec researchers said Trojans were the main threat in February but that PDF exploits are on the rise. Trojans accounted for six of the top 10 malware threats of February, according to GFI Software's monthly report.
Malicious PDF files now account for a larger proportion of document types used in attacks, according to Symantec. Based on current trends, Symantec predicted 76 percent of targeted malware could be used for PDF-based attacks by mid-2011.
"PDF-based targeted attacks are here to stay and are predicted to worsen as malware authors continue to innovate in the delivery, construction and obfuscation of the techniques necessary for this type of malware," Wood said.
China was the most spammed country in February, followed by the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Spam levels were 81.4 percent for the United States, compared with China's 86.2 percent. The most spammed industry sector continued to be the automotive sector, with 84.3 percent of e-mail, followed by education and pharmaceuticals.
However, governmental organizations were the most targeted for malware, with 1 in 41.1 e-mails being blocked as malicious, according to Symantec.
While virus activity increased slightly, the volume of e-mails with links to malicious Websites declined from January, Symantec said. Of the malicious domains blocked in February by MessageLabs Intelligence, 38.9 percent were new, a decline of about 2 percent since January, Symantec said. An average of 4,098 new Websites harboring malware was identified per day, a decrease of almost 14 percent since January, according to the report.
Despite more malware flooding networks, actual infection rates may be dropping, Panda Security researchers said. The security firm based its results on data gathered by Panda ActiveScan, a free online scanner available on the company's Website. Of the computers scanned in February, only 39 percent were infected with malware, compared with 50 percent in January, Panda Security said. Of the infected computers, Trojans were the most common malware found; they are responsible for 61 percent of infections.
| Malware |
SysAdmin of Billion-Dollar Hacking Group Gets 10-Year Sentence | https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/sysadmin-of-billion-dollar-hacking.html | A high-level manager and systems administrator associated with the FIN7 threat actor has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday.
Fedir Hladyr, a 35-year-old Ukrainian national, is said to have played a crucial role in a criminal scheme that compromised tens of millions of debit and credit cards, in addition to aggregating the stolen information, supervising other members of the group, and maintaining the server infrastructure that FIN7 used to attack and control victims' machines.
The development comes after Hladyr pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking in September 2019. He was arrested in Dresden, Germany, in 2018 and extradited to the U.S. city of Seattle. Hladyr has also been ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution.
"This criminal organization had more than 70 people organized into business units and teams. Some were hackers, others developed the malware installed on computers, and still others crafted the malicious emails that duped victims into infecting their company systems," said Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa A. Gorman.
"This defendant worked at the intersection of all these activities and thus bears heavy responsibility for billions in damage caused to companies and individual consumers."
Also called Anunak, Carbanak Group, and the Navigator Group, the malware campaign unleashed by FIN7 is estimated to have caused overall damage of more than $3 billion to banks, merchants, card companies, and consumers.
The attacks involved targeting the restaurant, gaming, and hospitality industries by sending spear-phishing emails containing decoy documents with the goal of plundering customer payment card data, which were then used or sold for profit in online underground marketplaces at least since 2015.
In the U.S. alone, FIN7 has been responsible for the theft of more than 20 million customer card records from over 6,500 individual point-of-sale terminals at more than 3,600 separate business locations. Besides the U.S., FIN7 attackers left their fingerprints in a string of orchestrated intrusions against retailers in the U.K., Australia, and France. Some of its high-profile victims included Chipotle Mexican Grill, Chili's, Arby's, Red Robin, and Jason's Deli.
At the sentencing hearing, Hladyr said he had "ruined years of my life and put [his] family through great risk and struggle."
| Malware |
Hackers Breached Colonial Pipeline Using Compromised VPN Password | https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/hackers-breached-colonial-pipeline.html | The ransomware cartel that masterminded the Colonial Pipeline attack early last month crippled the pipeline operator's network using a compromised virtual private network (VPN) account password, the latest investigation into the incident has revealed.
The development, which was reported by Bloomberg on Friday, involved gaining an initial foothold into the networks as early as April 29 through the VPN account, which allowed employees to access the company's networks remotely.
The VPN login — which didn't have multi-factor protections on — was unused but active at the time of the attack, the report said, adding the password has since been discovered inside a batch of leaked passwords on the dark web, suggesting that an employee of the company may have reused the same password on another account that was previously breached.
It's, however, unclear how the password was obtained, Charles Carmakal, senior vice president at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant, was quoted as saying to the publication. The FireEye-owned subsidiary is currently assisting Colonial Pipeline with the incident response efforts following a ransomware attack on May 7 that led to the company halting its operations for nearly a week.
DarkSide, the cybercrime syndicate behind the attack, has since disbanded, but not before stealing nearly 100 gigabytes of data from Colonial Pipeline in the act of double extortion, forcing the company to pay a $4.4 million ransom shortly after the hack and avoid disclosure of sensitive information. The gang is estimated to have made away with nearly $90 million during the nine months of its operations.
The Colonial Pipeline incident has also prompted the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to issue a security directive on May 28 requiring pipeline operators to report cyberattacks to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) within 12 hours, in addition to mandating facilities to submit a vulnerability assessment identifying any gaps in their existing practices within 30 days.
The development comes amid an explosion of ransomware attacks in recent months, including that of Brazilian meat processing company JBS last week by Russia-linked REvil group, underscoring a threat to critical infrastructure and introducing a new point of failure that has had a severe impact on consumer supply chains and day-to-day operations, leading to fuel shortages and delays in emergency health procedures.
As the ransom demands have ballooned drastically, inflating from thousands to millions of dollars, so have the attacks on high-profile victims, with companies in energy, education, healthcare, and food sectors increasingly becoming prime targets, in turn fueling a vicious cycle that enables cybercriminals to seek the largest payouts possible.
The profitable business model of double extortion — i.e., combining data exfiltration and ransomware threats — have also resulted in attackers expanding on the technique to what's called triple extortion, wherein payments are demanded from customers, partners, and other third-parties related to the initial breach to demand even more money for their crimes.
Worryingly, this trend of paying off criminal actors has also set off mounting concerns that it could establish a dangerous precedent, further emboldening attackers to single out critical infrastructure and put them at risk.
REvil (aka Sodinokibi), for its part, has begun incorporating a new tactic into its ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) playbook that includes staging distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and making voice calls to the victim's business partners and the media, "aimed at applying further pressure on the victim's company to meet ransom demands within the designated time frame," researchers from Check Point disclosed last month.
"By combining file encryption, data theft, and DDoS attacks, cybercriminals have essentially hit a ransomware trifecta designed to increase the possibility of payment," network security firm NetScout said.
The disruptive power of the ransomware pandemic has also set in motion a series of actions, what with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) making the longstanding problem a "top priority." The Justice Department said it's elevating investigations of ransomware attacks to a similar priority as terrorism, according to a report from Reuters last week.
Stating that the FBI is looking at ways to disrupt the criminal ecosystem that supports the ransomware industry, Director Christopher Wray told the Wall Street Journal that the agency is investigating nearly 100 different types of ransomware, most of them traced backed to Russia, while comparing the national security threat to the challenge posed by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Update: In a Senate committee hearing on June 8, Colonial Pipeline CEO Joseph Blount said that the ransomware attack that disrupted gasoline supply in the U.S. started with the attackers exploiting a legacy VPN profile that was not intended to be in use. "We are still trying to determine how the attackers gained the needed credentials to exploit it," Blunt said in his testimony.
Besides shutting down the legacy VPN profile, Blunt said extra layers of protection have been implemented across the enterprise to bolster its cyber defenses. "But criminal gangs and nation states are always evolving, sharpening their tactics, and working to find new ways to infiltrate the systems of American companies and the American government. These attacks will continue to happen, and critical infrastructure will continue to be a target," he added.
| Cyber_Attack |
Researchers Discover New Ways to Hack WPA3 Protected WiFi Passwords | https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/hack-wpa3-wifi-password.html | The same team of cybersecurity researchers who discovered several severe vulnerabilities, collectively dubbed as Dragonblood, in the newly launched WPA3 WiFi security standard few months ago has now uncovered two more flaws that could allow attackers to hack WiFi passwords.
WPA, or WiFi Protected Access, is a WiFi security standard that has been designed to authenticate wireless devices using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) protocol and intended to prevent hackers from eavesdropping on your wireless data.
The WiFi Protected Access III (WPA3) protocol was launched a year ago in an attempt to address technical shortcomings of the WPA2 protocol from the ground, which has long been considered to be insecure and found vulnerable to more severe KRACK attacks.
WPA3 relies on a more secure handshake, called SAE (Simultaneous Authentication of Equals), which is also known as Dragonfly, that aims to protect WiFi networks against offline dictionary attacks.
However, in less than a year, security researchers Mathy Vanhoef and Eyal Ronen found several weaknesses (Dragonblood) in the early implementation of WPA3, allowing an attacker to recover WiFi passwords by abusing timing or cache-based side-channel leaks.
Shortly after that disclosure, the WiFi Alliance, the non-profit organization which oversees the adoption of the WiFi standard, released patches to address the issues and created security recommendations to mitigate the initial Dragonblood attacks.
But it turns out that those security recommendations, which were created privately without collaborating with the researchers, are not enough to protect users against the Dragonblood attacks. Instead, it opens up two new side-channel attacks, which once again allows attackers to steal your WiFi password even if you are using the latest version of WiFi protocol.
New Side-Channel Attack Against WPA3 When Using Brainpool Curves
The first vulnerability, identified as CVE-2019-13377, is a timing-based side-channel attack against WPA3's Dragonfly handshake when using Brainpool curves, which the WiFi Alliance recommended vendors to use as one of the security recommendations to add another layer of security.
"However, we found that using Brainpool curves introduces the second class of side-channel leaks in the Dragonfly handshake of WPA3," the duo says in an updated advisory. "In other words, even if the advice of the WiFi Alliance is followed, implementations remain at risk of attacks."
"The new side-channel leak is located in the password encoding algorithm of Dragonfly," the researchers said, "We confirmed the new Brainpool leak in practice against the lastest Hostapd version, and were able to brute-force the password using the leaked information."
Side-Channel Attack Against FreeRADIUS' EAP-PWD Implementation
The second vulnerability, identified as CVE-2019-13456, is an information leak bug which resides the implementation of EAP-pwd (Extensible Authentication Protocol-Password) in FreeRADIUS—one of the most widely used open-source RADIUS server that companies utilizes as a central database to authenticate remote users.
Mathy Vanhoef, one of the two researchers who discovered the Dragonblood flaws, told The Hacker News that an attacker could initiate several EAP-pwd handshakes to leak information, which can then be used to recover the user's WiFi password by performing dictionary and brute-force attacks.
"The EAP-pwd protocol internally uses the Dragonfly handshake, and this protocol is used in some enterprise networks where users authenticate using a username and password," Vanhoef told The Hacker News.
"More worrisome, we found that the WiFi firmware of Cypress chips only executes 8 iterations at minimum to prevent side-channel leaks. Although this makes attacks harder, it does not prevent them." the duo said.
According to researchers, implementing Dragonfly algorithm and WPA3 without side-channel leaks is surprisingly hard, and the backward-compatible countermeasures against these attacks are too costly for lightweight devices.
The researchers shared their new findings with the WiFi Alliance and tweeted that "WiFi standard is now being updated with proper defenses, which might lead to WPA 3.1," but unfortunately, the new defenses wouldn't be compatible with the initial version of WPA3.
Mathy Vanhoef also told The Hacker News that it's unfortunate that WiFi Alliance created their security guidelines in private. "If they would have done this publicly, these new issues could have been avoided. Even the original WPA3 certification was partly made in private, which also wasn't ideal."
| Vulnerability |
Bloomberg's Businessweek website infected with Malware | https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/bloombergs-businessweek-website.html | On a quick tip from a The Hacker News reader - Travis, we came to know about that some antivirus giving warning when readers try to visit Bloomberg's Businessweek website ( businessweek.com ) that the site is infected with malware and trying to drop a malware on visitor's system. Website having very high alexa rank, that means it server updates to millions of daily visitors. Most obvious that Bloomberg's site was hacked and then hacker was able to inject the script to infect visitors of site.
After exploring the site, I found that some "Under Maintenance" pages like ( hxxp://bx.businessweek.com/photos/spham708_medium.jpg ) of Businessweek website having injected iframe that trying to open a remote page uploaded on a italian website as shown below:
Injected URL : hxxp://www.lamiabiocasa.it/class/cls-memcache.php ( Do not open this page ).
We have another news from other sources that, recently around hundreds of italian websites was got hacked silently and hacker inject similar malware on those sites. On a quick search, I found that in last 24 hours Sucuri Malware Labs identified 126 websites that are compromised and serving malware from above listed site ( i.e. lamiabiocasa.it )
File "cls-memcache.php" which is injected behind the Bloomberg's Businessweek site have been deleted now from the italian server just few hours before but their website have the iframe still on the site.
| Malware |
Subsets and Splits