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New Internet Explorer zero-day, Can trigger malware automatically | https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/new-internet-explorer-zero-day-can.html | The new zero day exploit has been discovered and being exploited in the wild. This can be used to load malicious application on victim machines running fully patched Windows XP SP3 along with the latest editions of the IE 7 and IE 8 browser and Adobe's Flash software.
Eric Romang was examining one of the servers used to launch attacks on vulnerable Java installations in past, and he says that he has found a new zero day exploit for Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser. He said, "I can confirm, the zero-day season is really not over yet."
AlienVault Labs researcher Jaime Blasco reported that, "the gang behind the Java attacks in August and September may be moving on: with domains used in that attack located at new IP addresses and serving up the new and more potent attacks."
As shown in above image example, the file exploit.html creates the initial vector to exploit the vulnerability and loads the flash file Moh2010.swf, which is a flash file encrypted using DoSWF. The Flash file is in charge of doing the heap spray. Then it loads Protect.html.
There results also shows that this zero day attack is being used in attacks that install the Poison Ivy Trojan. Metasploit has released a working exploit for this Zero-day.
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter via email - Be First to know about Security and Hackers. or Join our Huge Hackers Community on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.
| Malware |
Here's the List of ~600 MAC Addresses Targeted in Recent ASUS Hack | https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/asus-hack-mac-addresses.html | EXCLUSIVE — While revealing details of a massive supply chain cyber attack against ASUS customers, Russian security firm Kaspersky last week didn't release the full list all MAC addresses that hackers hardcoded into their malware to surgically target a specific pool of users.
Instead, Kaspersky released a dedicated offline tool and launched an online web page where ASUS PC users can search for their MAC addresses to check whether they were in the hit list.
However, many believe it is not a convenient way for large enterprises with hundreds of thousands of systems to know if they were targeted or not.
List of MAC Addresses Targeted in ASUS Supply Chain Attack
To solve this and help other cybersecurity experts continue their hunt for related hacking campaigns, Australian security firm Skylight's CTO Shahar Zini contacted The Hacker News and provided the full list of nearly 583 MAC addresses targeted in the ASUS breach.
"If information regarding targets exists, it should be made publicly available to the security community so we can better protect ourselves," Skylight said in a post shared with The Hacker News.
"So, we thought it would be a good idea to extract the list and make it public so that every security practitioner would be able to bulk compare them to known machines in their domain."
Skylight researchers retrieved the list of targeted MAC addresses with the help of the offline tool Kaspersky released, which contains the full list of 619 MAC addresses within the executable, but protected using a salted hash algorithm.
They used a powerful Amazon server and a modified version of HashCat password cracking tool to brute force 583 MAC addresses in less than an hour.
"Enter Amazon's AWS p3.16xlarge instance. These beasts carry eight (you read correctly) of NVIDIA's V100 Tesla 16GB GPUs. The entire set of 1300 prefixes was brute-forced in less than an hour."
ASUS Hack: Operation ShadowHammer
It was revealed last week that a group of state-sponsored hackers managed to hijack ASUS Live automatic software update server last year and pushed malicious updates to over one million Windows computers worldwide in order to infect them with backdoors.
As we reported last week, Kaspersky discovered the attack, which it dubbed Operation ShadowHammer, after its 57,000 users were infected with the backdoored version of ASUS LIVE Update software.
The security company then informed ASUS about the ongoing supply chain attack campaign on Jan 31, 2019.
After analyzing more than 200 samples of the malicious updates, researchers learned that the hackers, who are not yet attributed to any APT group, only wanted to target a specific list of users identified by their unique MAC addresses, which were hardcoded into the malware.
Though the second stage malware was only pushed to nearly 600 targeted users, it doesn't mean that millions of ASUS computers which received the malicious software update are not compromised.
How to Check if Your ASUS Laptop Has Been Hacked?
After admitting that an unknown group of hackers hacked its servers between June and November 2018, ASUS this week released a new clean version of its LIVE Update application (version 3.6.8) and also promised to add "multiple security verification mechanisms" to reduce the chances of further attacks.
However, you should know that just installing the clean version of the software update over the malicious package would not remove the malware code from the infected systems.
So, to help its customers know if they were a victim of the attack, ASUS also released a diagnostic tool using which you can check whether your ASUS system was affected by the malicious update.
If you find your computer MAC address in the list, it means your computer has been backdoored by the malicious update, and ASUS recommends you perform a factory reset to wipe up the entire system.
The identity of hackers and their intentions are still unknown. The Hacker News will update you with any new developments.
| Cyber_Attack |
Patch Report: All Versions of Windows affected by Critical Vulnerability | https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/windows-patch-update.html | Microsoft has rolled out six security updates this Patch Tuesday, out of which three are considered to be "critical," while the rest are marked as "important."
Bulletin MS15-106 is considered to be critical for Internet Explorer (IE) and affects absolutely all versions of Windows operating system.
The update addresses a flaw in the way IE handles objects in memory. The flaw could be exploited to gain access to an affected system, allowing hackers to gain the same access rights as the logged-in user.
A hacker could "take advantage of compromised websites, and websites that accept or host user-provided content or advertisements," the advisory states. "These websites could contain specially crafted content that could exploit the vulnerabilities."
Therefore, the dependency here is that an IE user must knowingly click on the malicious link, which then be leveraged by an attacker to get the full control over a computer that's not yet running the patch.
So, users of Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, and Windows 10 are advised to install this update as soon as possible.
And, if you have not yet patched your PCs against this flaw, just make sure you do not click any suspicious links or websites landing in your inbox.
The other two patch updates, MS15-108, and MS15-109, address other critical flaws in Windows.
Bulletin MS15-108 addresses four vulnerabilities including a Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability in Windows. It resolves vulnerabilities in the VBScript and JScript scripting engines in Windows.
Microsoft's advisory states: "The more severe of the vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if an attacker hosts a specially crafted website that is designed to exploit the vulnerabilities through Internet Explorer (or leverages a compromised website or a website that accepts or hosts user-provided content or advertisements) and then convinces a user to view the website."
The third and last critical security update, MS15-109, also addresses Remote Code Execution (RCE) flaws in Windows as well as packages a security update for Windows Shell.
The vulnerability could be exploited if a user opens a specially crafted toolbar object in Windows, or an attacker tricks a user to view specially crafted content posted online.
The company also rolled out three other patches – MS15-107, MS15-110, and MS15-111 – to address vulnerabilities in Windows, Microsoft Edge browser, Office, Office Services and Web Apps, and Server. All these bulletins are marked as "important".
All the updates are necessary, and we advise Windows users and administrators to install the new updates as soon as possible.
For the updates, you will have to follow the same method of downloading and installing the Windows update for your system.
| Vulnerability |
Hackers Destroyed VFEmail Service – Deleted Its Entire Data and Backups | https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/vfemail-cyber-attack.html | What could be more frightening than a service informing you that all your data is gone—every file and every backup servers are entirely wiped out?
The worst nightmare of its kind. Right?
But that's precisely what just happened this week with VFEmail.net, a US-based secure email provider that lost all data and backup files for its users after unknown hackers destroyed its entire U.S. infrastructure, wiping out almost two decades' worth of data and backups in a matter of few hours for no apparent reason.
Started in 2001 by Rick Romero, VFEmail provides secure, private email services to companies and end users, both free and paid-for.
Describing the attack as "catastrophic," the privacy-focused email service provider revealed that the attack took place on February 11 and that "all data" on their US servers—both the primary and the backup systems—has been completely wiped out, and it's seemingly beyond recovery.
"Yes, @VFEmail is effectively gone," Romero wrote on Twitter Tuesday morning. "It will likely not return. I never thought anyone would care about my labor of love so much that they'd want to completely and thoroughly destroy it."
The VFEmail team detected the attack on February 11 itself after it noticed all the servers for his service went offline without any notice.
After two hours, the company reported that the attackers had been caught "in the middle of formatting its backup server," saying that it "fear all US-based data may be lost."
However, shortly after that VFEmail confirmed that "all the disks on every server" had been wiped out, virtually erasing the company's entire infrastructure, including mail hosts, virtual machine hosts, and a SQL server cluster, within just a few hours.
"Strangely, not all VMs shared the same authentication, but all were destroyed," VFEmail explained. "This was more than a multi-password via ssh exploit, and there was no ransom. Just attack and destroy,"—a rare example of a purely destructive attack.
Although it is yet unclear who was behind this destructive attack and how the hack was pulled off, a statement posted to the company's website pointed to an IP address 94[.]155[.]49[.]9 and the username "aktv," which appears to be registered in Bulgaria.
Romero believes the hacker behind the above-mentioned IP address most likely used a virtual machine and multiple means of access onto the VFEmail infrastructure to carry out the attack, and as a result, no method of protection, such as 2-factor authentication, would have protected VFEmail from the intrusion.
The official website has now been restored and running, but all secondary domains still remain unavailable. If you are an existing user, expect to find your inboxes empty.
This isn't the first time the company has been attacked. In 2015, a group of hackers known as the "Armada Collective," who also targeted Protonmail, Hushmail, and Runbox, launched a DDoS attack against VFEmail after it refused to pay a ransom.
| Cyber_Attack |
Advance Ethical Hacking and Cyber Security Boot Camp at Delhi, India | https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/advance-ethical-hacking-and-cyber.html | Have you ever wondered how Hackers or Black Hats hack into a computer system ? Our Hacker Boot Camp training session will teach you how this can be done. You will be shown the techniques, tools and methods that the hacker uses. This insight will help you understand how to better protect your IT architecture and identify the vectors of attack that hackers use.
The Hacker News organising an Advance Ethical Hacking and Cyber Security Boot Camp at Delhi, India. All of our instructors are experts in their field and maintain respected reputations within the security community.
CCSN is a revolutionary new certification in the field of information security training program for amateurs and professionals to help you gain the skills you need to become an expert in the field of information security.
This specialized certification assures potential employers and customers that you have a level of advanced knowledge to detect and offer support for some of the most advanced security vulnerabilities. The CCSN is the only completely hands-on, real world oriented security certification.
Batches with limited Registrations in order to provide best Training Quality and Personal Interaction between students and Trainers. Course comes with a custom-built practical labs specially designed to clear up concepts, reinforce techniques, and make you comfortable with the tools of the trade.
Many companies are actively recruiting security specialists and this training will help to prepare you for senior technical and management positions in many industry sectors.
To get Registration and Details, Please do Email to [email protected]
Course Outline:
Php, Database and Linux - These are Pre-Required Knowledge that students will learn within CCSN package.
Information Gathering and Scanning - Enumeration using various Backtrack Tools
Privacy is the number one issue facing by internet users. You will learn to use Proxy Servers, Anonymity Techniques, Various Tools, Tunneling & VPN usage and Concepts.
Email Hacking & Social Engineering - If you ever wonder how hackers actually hack into any email account? This Lesson is going to give each and every possible solution of this Question.
Cryptography and Encryption Basics, Understanding various Hashes and Encryption Algorithms and various password cracking techniques.
Camp will include various types techniques that can be used to Hack a System, Cracking system password, Using Stealers, Key loggers and Remote Administrations Tools (RATs) and Creating Undetectable Viruses using Crypters, Binders and Assembly Codes.
Web Application Hacking using - Advance SQL Injection, Cross Site Scripting, Local File Inclusion (LFI), Remote File Inclusion (RFI), Parameter Manipulation, Session and Cookies Hijacking, Click Jacking, Shell Injection, Brute force Attacks against Website login pages.
Server Hacking via Rooting Servers, Remote Code Execution, Buffers Overflows, Brute force against Servers, Using Dos, DDos and Creating Botnets, Using various Exploits and Exploits Databases.
Understanding Wireshark, Cain & Abel and TCP Dump, Man in the middle attacks, Router Hacking, Sniffing Data and Passwords, ARP , DNS, DHCP Spoofing attacks, DNS poising , DOS attack against an IP address, Flood the LAN with random MAC addresses, Packet Injection.
In labs of this lesson a CCSN student will learn practically to crack Wireless Encryptions and Prevention Techniques. The Complete Demonstration will have various real World scenarios to clear the Advantages of Wireless Hacking.
Using Wikto, Nessus , skipfish, w3af, SQLmap Websecurify for vulnerability Scanning and ExploitingII. Wordpress-scan , Drupal scan, Joomscan, cms-explorer for CMS Hacking and Pen-testing.
Using Metasploit Framework for Exploitation, Websploit, SET, Fast-Track SQL Pwnage, Winautopwn for various System/Network/web Attacks.
Using IP tables and Firewalls Policies to Protect Network/ System, Installing and Configuring Honeypots to trap hackers, Installing and Configuring IDS (Intrusion Detection System).
Computer Forensics and Incident Management.
Prerequisites : Dedication! Because Rest base programming and other things Students will learn within CCSN package.
Course Date
21th May 2012
No. of Seats
50
Course Duration
15 Days (6 Hours/Day)
Who can join this Course
Students, Professionals, Programmers, Developers, Security Enthusiasts
To get Registration and Details, Please do Email to [email protected]
| Malware |
Over 15,000 Memcached DDoS Attacks Hit 7,100 Sites in Last 10 Days | https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/memcached-ddos-attack.html | Memcached reflections that recently fueled two most largest amplification DDoS attacks in the history have also helped other cybercriminals launch nearly 15,000 cyber attacks against 7,131 unique targets in last ten days, a new report revealed.
Chinese Qihoo 360's Netlab, whose global DDoS monitoring service 'DDosMon' initially spotted the Memcached-based DDoS attacks, has published a blog post detailing some new statistics about the victims and sources of these attacks.
The list of famous online services and websites which were hit by massive DDoS attacks since 24th February includes Google, Amazon, QQ.com, 360.com, PlayStation, OVH Hosting, VirusTotal, Comodo, GitHub (1.35 Tbps attack), Royal Bank, Minecraft and RockStar games, Avast, Kaspersky, PornHub, Epoch Times newspaper, and Pinterest.
Overall, the victims are mainly based in the United States, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Brazil, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the Netherlands.
According to Netlab researchers, the frequency of attacks since 24th February has increased dramatically, as listed below:
Before 24th February, the day when Memcached-based DDoS attacks were first spotted, the daily average was less than 50 attacks.
Between 24th and 28th February, when Memcached as a new amplification attack vector was not publicly disclosed and known to a small group of people, the attacks raised to an average of 372 attacks per day.
Soon after the first public report came on 27th February, between 1st and 8th March, the total number of attacks jumped to 13,027, with an average of 1,628 DDoS attack events per day.
Netlab's 360 0kee team initially discovered the Memcached vulnerability in June 2017 and disclosed (presentation) it in November 2017 at a conference, but its researchers have hardly seen any Memcache DDoS attacks since then.
The maximum number of active vulnerable Memcached servers at a time that participated in the DRDoS attacks was 20,612.
I don't want to exaggerate this but expect hundreds of thousands of Memcached-based DDoS attacks in coming days, as hackers and researchers have now released multiple easy-to-execute exploits that could allow anyone to launch Memcached amplification attacks.
However, researchers have also discovered a 'kill-switch' technique that could help victims mitigate Memcached DDoS attacks efficiently.
Despite multiple warnings, over 12,000 vulnerable Memcached servers with UDP support enabled are still exposed on the Internet, which could fuel more cyber attacks.
Therefore, server administrators are strongly advised to install the latest Memcached 1.5.6 version which disables UDP protocol by default to prevent amplification/reflection DDoS attacks.
| Cyber_Attack |
Zero-Day Remote 'Root' Exploit Disclosed In AT&T DirecTV WVB Devices | https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/directv-wvb-hack.html | Security researchers have publicly disclosed an unpatched zero-day vulnerability in the firmware of AT&T DirecTV WVB kit after trying to get the device manufacturer to patch this easy-to-exploit flaw over the past few months.
The problem is with a core component of the Genie DVR system that's shipped free of cost with DirecTV and can be easily exploited by hackers to gain root access and take full control of the device, placing millions of people who've signed up to DirecTV service at risk.
The vulnerability actually resides in WVBR0-25—a Linux-powered wireless video bridge manufactured by Linksys that AT&T provides to its new customers.
DirecTV Wireless Video Bridge WVBR0-25 allows the main Genie DVR to communicate over the air with customers' Genie client boxes (up to 8) that are plugged into their TVs around the home.
Trend Micro researcher Ricky Lawshae, who is also a DirecTV customer, decided to take a closer look at the device and found that Linksys WVBR0-25 hands out internal diagnostic information from the device's web server, without requiring any authentication.
When trying to browse to the wireless bridge's web server on the device, Lawshae was expecting a login page or similar, but instead, he found "a wall of text streaming before [his] eyes."
Once there, Lawshae was able to see the output of several diagnostic scripts containing everything about the DirecTV Wireless Video Bridge, including the WPS pin, connected clients, running processes, and much more.
What's more worrisome was that the device was accepting his commands remotely and that too at the "root" level, meaning Lawshae could have run software, exfiltrate data, encrypt files, and do almost anything he wanted on the Linksys device.
"It literally took 30 seconds of looking at this device to find and verify an unauthenticated, remote root command injection vulnerability. It was at this point that I became pretty frustrated," Lawshae wrote in an advisory published Wednesday on Trend Micro-owned Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) website.
"The vendors involved here should have had some form of secure development to prevent bugs like this from shipping. More than that, we as security practitioners have failed to affect the changes needed in the industry to prevent these simple yet impactful bugs from reaching unsuspecting consumers."
Lawshae also provided a video, demonstrating how a quick and straightforward hack let anyone get a root shell on the DirecTV wireless box in less than 30 seconds, granting them full remote unauthenticated admin control over the device.
The vulnerability was reported by the ZDI Initiative to Linksys more than six months ago, but the vendor ceased communication with the researcher and had yet not fixed the problem, leaving this easy-to-exploit vulnerability unpatched and open for hackers.
So, after over half a year, ZDI decided to publicize the zero-day vulnerability, and recommended users to limit their devices that can interact with Linksys WVBR0-25 "to those that actually need to reach" in order to protect themselves.
| Vulnerability |
Duqu Trojan developed in unknown programming language | https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/duqu-trojan-developed-in-unknown.html | Duqu Trojan developed in unknown programming language
Researchers at Kaspersky have reached out for assistance after an investigation into the Duqu Trojan uncovered a section that is written in an unknown programming language.
The Russian security company says this new information could help them discover how the worm was able to communicate with its Command and Control (C&C) servers. The C&C servers essentially tell the worm what to do once it has accessed a system.
While the majority of Duqu is written in C++, the Framework was not and was not compiled with Microsoft's Visual C++ 2008. Other languages ruled out include Python, Java, Objective C, Ada and Lua."Given the size of the Duqu project, it's possible that an entirely different team was responsible for creating the Duqu Framework as opposed to the team that created the drivers and wrote the system infection exploits," said Alexander Gostev, chief security expert at Kaspersky Lab, in a statement.
The mysterious code could be the work of a separate collaborator, indiciating that multiple parties worked to develop the infection. Kaspersky is hoping that someone in the programming community will recognize it and come forward to identify it. Identification of the language could help analysts build a profile of DuQu's authors, particularly if they can tie the language to a group of people known to use this specialized programming language or even to people who were behind its development.
Duqu first emerged in September 2011 and is thought to have been written by the same people behind the infamous Stuxnet worm, which targeted Iran's nuclear facilities and attempted to steal highly sensitive information. Duqu worked along the same lines; acting as a backdoor into a system to steal data.
Researchers have noted a number of similarities in the behaviour and spread of Duqu with the infamous Stuxnet malware, leading some researchers to dub Duqu as the successor to Stuxnet.
| Malware |
Phoenix exploit kit 2.5 leaked, Download Now ! | https://thehackernews.com/2011/04/phoenix-exploit-kit-25-leaked-download.html | Phoenix exploit kit 2.5 leaked, Download Now !
Phoenix exploit kit 2.5 has been leaked .
Now U can dowload from given link.. At below here is a some define about Phoenix Exploit Kit.
The Phoenix Exploit Kit is a good example of exploit packs used to exploit vulnerable software on the computers of unsuspecting Internet users. Often, cybercriminals drive traffic to the exploit kit by compromising legitimate sites and by inserting iframes that point to the exploit kit or by poisoning search engine results that take users to the exploit kit.
When users land on a page injected with the exploit kit, it detects the user's Web browser and OS version then attempts to exploit either the browser or a browser plug-in. The latest version of the Phoenix Exploit Kit currently has payloads for nine different system configurations, including:
* XPIE7: Internet Explorer 7 and either Windows XP, Windows XP SP2, or Windows 2003
* VISTAIE7: Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Vista
* XPIE8: Internet Explorer 8 and either Windows XP, Windows XP SP2, or Windows 2003
* VISTAIE8: Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Vista
* IE: Versions of Internet Explorer that are not IE7 or IE8
* WIN7IE: Internet Explorer and Windows 7
* XPOTHER: Browsers other than Internet Explorer on Windows XP, Windows XP SP2, or Windows 2003
* VISTAOTHER: Browsers other than Internet Explorer on Windows Vista
* WIN7OTHER: Browsers other than Internet Explorer on Windows 7
Once users are directed to a payload page, the kit attempts to exploit vulnerabilities in versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader, Adobe Flash Player, Internet Explorer, and Java.
Java has become the leading exploit vector for a variety of exploit packs. In fact, Phoenix Exploit Kit 2.5 has been updated to include three additional Java exploits, namely:
* JAVA RMI
* JAVA MIDI
* JAVA SKYLINE
The administration panel of Phoenix Exploit Kit 2.5 contains an option to switch modes, which changes the Java exploit delivered to users. It allows the administrator to choose from among TC (CVE-2010-0840), RMI, or MIDI. This indicates that exploits for Java have become very attractive to malware distributors.
Download : https://www.multiupload.com/L7APNI8KGX
( Thanks to my frnd flexxpoint for this )
| Malware |
Fake Turkish digital Certificates blocked by Browser vendors | https://thehackernews.com/2013/01/fake-turkish-digital-certificates.html | It's the news of the day, a fraudulent digital certificate that could be used for active phishing attacks against Google's web properties. Using the certificate it is possible to spoof content in a classic phishing schema or perform a man-in-the-middle attack according Google Chrome Security Team and Microsoft experts.
Microsoft has been immediately started the procedure to update its Certificate Trust list (CTL) and all versions of its OSs to revoke the certificate. Microsoft has also decided to revoke other two certificates for the same reason, it seems that some attacks using the first certificate have been already detected, fraudulent digital certificate that was mistakenly issued by a domain registrar run by a Turkish domain registrar.
Microsoft has issued a security advisory "Microsoft Security Advisory (2798897) -Fraudulent Digital Certificates Could Allow Spoofing" that states:
"Microsoft is aware of active attacks using one fraudulent digital certificate issued by TURKTRUST Inc., which is a CA present in the Trusted Root Certification Authorities Store. This fraudulent certificate could be used to spoof content, perform phishing attacks, or perform man-in-the-middle attacks. This issue affects all supported releases of Microsoft Windows.
TURKTRUST Inc. incorrectly created two subsidiary CAs (*.EGO.GOV.TR and e-islem.kktcmerkezbankasi.org). The *.EGO.GOV.TR subsidiary CA was then used to issue a fraudulent digital certificate to *.google.com. This fraudulent certificate could be used to spoof content, perform phishing attacks, or perform man-in-the-middle attacks against several Google web properties.
To help protect customers from the fraudulent use of this digital certificate, Microsoft is updating the Certificate Trust list (CTL) and is providing an update for all supported releases of Microsoft Windows that removes the trust of certificates that are causing this issue."
It's still unknown which is the real target of attack neither their geographic distribution, Microsoft advisory refers the domain kktcmerkezbankasi.org a web site that present itself as the Central Bank of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).
Google On-Line Security Blog published a blog post that reported that on Dec. 24, 2012, its Chrome Web browser detected and blocked an unauthorized digital certificate for the "*.google.com" domain.
The post states:
"We investigated immediately and found the certificate was issued by an intermediate certificate authority (CA) linking back to TURKTRUST, a Turkish certificate authority. Intermediate CA certificates carry the full authority of the CA, so anyone who has one can use it to create a certificate for any website they wish to impersonate.
In response, we updated Chrome's certificate revocation metadata on December 25 to block that intermediate CA, and then alerted TURKTRUST and other browser vendors. TURKTRUST told us that based on our information, they discovered that in August 2011 they had mistakenly issued two intermediate CA certificates to organizations that should have instead received regular SSL certificates."
In a blog post published a In 2011 I explained which is the usefulness to steal a CA certificate:
Malware production - Installation for certain types of software could needs that its code is digitally signed with a trusted certificate. By stealing the certificate of a trusted vendor reduces the possibility that the malicious software being detected as quickly. That is exactly what happend for Stuxnet virus.
Economic Frauds - digital signature give a warranty on who signed a document and you can decide if you trust the person or company who signed the file and if you trust the organization who issued the certificate. If a digital certificate is stolen we will suffer of an identity theft, let's imagine which could be the implication. Some bot, like happened for the banking with Zeus malware, could be deployed to steal steal site certificates so that they can fool web browsers into thinking that a phishing site is a legitimate bank web site.
Cyber warfare - Criminals or governments could use the stolen certificates to conduct "man-in-the-middle" attacks, tricking users into thinking they were at a legitimate site when in fact their communications were being secretly tampered and intercepted. That is for example what occurred in the DigiNota case … companies like Facebook, Google and also agencies like CIA, MI6 were targeted in Dutch government certificate hack.
The security repercussions are very critical, any attacker with the possibility to sign using a certificate of a CA can sign certificates for any domain. In the past we have already observed similar incidents, such as the case of Diginotar CA, learning how much dangerous is the impairment of a CA.
Who will be next?
| Malware |
FBI — Botnets Infecting 18 Computers per Second. But How Many of Them NSA Holds? | https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/fbi-botnets-infecting-18-computers-per.html | Botnets - a secretly compromised networks of ordinary home and office computers with rogue software or "malware" that are controlled by an individual criminal or a group - has dramatically increased over the past several years and are considered to pose the biggest threat to the Internet.
Cyber criminals have brushed-up their hacking skills and are using Botnets as a cyber weapon to carry out multiple crimes like DDoS attacks (distributed denial of service), mass spamming, page rank and advertising revenue manipulation, mining bitcoins, cyber espionage and surveillance etc.
18 BOTNET INFECTIONS PER SECOND
According to the director of FBI's cyber division, Joseph Demarest, Botnet has become one of the biggest enemies of the Internet today, and therefore its impact has been significant. Yesterday during a hearing before a U.S. Senate committee, he says that every second 18 computers worldwide are part of botnet armies, which amounts to over 500 million compromised computers per year.
The network of compromised systems can do a drastic cyber crime activities without the knowledge of their computer's owner. Botnet allows its operator to steal personal and financial information, get into system owners' bank accounts, steal millions of credit cards, shut down websites, monitor your every keystroke and can even activate systems' cameras secretly which can take users' at great risk.
On Tuesday, a U.S. Senate committee assembled to discuss the progress of FBI agency's current and future anti-cyber crime strategy to disrupt Botnets, with agenda: "Taking Down Botnets: Public and Private Efforts to Disrupt and dismantle Cyber Criminal Networks."
BOTNET FETCHED MILLIONS OF DOLLARS
Joseph Demarest said the news is troubling as the botnets' high infection rate costs the US and global economies billions of dollars. Several successes "But our work is never done," noted the FBI chief.
"The use of botnets is on the rise. Industry experts estimate that botnet attacks have resulted in the overall loss of millions of dollars from financial institutions and other major US businesses," Demarest said.
"As you well know, we face cyber threats from state-sponsored hackers, hackers for hire, organized cyber syndicates, and terrorists. They seek our state secrets, our trade secrets, our technology, and our ideas—things of incredible value to all of us."
TWO FACES OF THE SAME GOVERNMENT - FBI & NSA
FBI trying to take down cyber criminals and putting its all effort to shut down botnet networks - which really sounds cool! But could you answer me that 'How NSA is conducting its wider spread mass surveillance program..??' Yes, of course, with the use of similar exploits and botnet malware. It was revealed few months ago from the Edward Snowden leaks that NSA is taking over entire networks of already-hacked machines (Botnets) and using them for their own purposes.
Also at the end of last year, Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reported that the document leaked by Snowden also revealed that NSA had established an army of "sleeper cells" – malware-infected, remote-controllable computers – on 50,000 networks by the middle of 2012, which waits for months or longer before it activates by the agency and begins harvesting data.
So, when one side of U.S. government is trying every effort to shut down the widely spread botnet networks and at the same time, the other side of government is building up their weapons with the use of similar malwares and botnets, it is difficult to mitigate the problem and, this unbalanced situation of the Internet is the main cause of terror in the digital world.
Well, botnets, malware, viruses, worms and other cyber threats are really a big issue for all of us, and also these attacks become more sophisticated and wider when become money motivated.
We also appreciate U.S. government efforts to combat cyber crimes. A month ago, FBI and Europol also took down the GameOver Zeus botnet that have stolen more than $100 million from banks, businesses and consumers worldwide.
| Cyber_Attack |
Hacker threatens to sell data of 3.7 Million Israeli Bank Customers, demands extortion money in Bitcoin | https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/hacker-Israeli-Bank-botnet-malware-extortion-bitcoin.html | Data breaches and security incidents are a constant in the headlines these days. Hackers and cyber criminals are motivated by status or money and finding new innovative and more creative attacks to achieve this.
One of them are, Digital Bank robbery - where the thieves didn't need masks and guns to pull off the job, all they need are - Hacking Skills, a computer and the Internet. Another way is Cyber extortion - threat of attack against an enterprise or a bank, coupled with a demand for money to avert or stop the attack.
According to Haaretz news, A Hacker - who is the operator of a biggest botnet malware network in the Israel, has threatens 3 major Israeli banks, i.e. Israel Discount Bank, Bank Yahav and the First International Bank of Israel.
"Bank received an e-mail message threatening that unless they handed over a certain sum in Bitcoins by the end of next week, a list of customers' details would be given to hostile elements."
Banks database, network and websites were not breached in this case, rather the hacker claimed that he holds a huge financial trojan botnet network in Israel that have already infected millions of systems across the nation and collected a massive dump of stolen personal information, passwords, banking information and credit card numbers of 3.7 Million users.
The hacker has demanded the payoff in Bitcoin, a untraceable virtual currency, perfect for blackmailers and cyber criminals. Bitcoin is not backed by any central bank or government and can be transferred "peer to peer" between any two people anywhere.
Banks declined to comment on the report and immediately reported the threat to the Israel Police. According to the source, some of them do not see the threat as serious. Bank of Israel held a meeting on Tuesday on the issue, we will update you soon about their next step with a new article.
Cyber attacks are becoming more and more advanced and sophisticated, more or less any company in the world is on the list of targets to rob. You should keep updating your knowledge about the cyber world to Stay Safe from all threats.
| Cyber_Attack |
Chinese Hacker Cracks Hundreds of Gmail Accounts of U.S. & Asia | https://thehackernews.com/2011/06/chinese-hacker-cracks-hundreds-of-gmail.html | Chinese Hacker Cracks Hundreds of Gmail Accounts of U.S. & Asia
Hackers around the world are gaining more attention than usual in the last few months. Now Google has added another announcement to the pile that hundreds of Gmail accounts have been hacked recently.
Now, Google affirms that the problem doesn't rest with Gmail security but rather this scheme was a result of phishing and malware.
Google spilled the details on Wednesday via its official blog:
Through the strength of our cloud-based security and abuse detection systems*, we recently uncovered a campaign to collect user passwords, likely through phishing. This campaign, which appears to originate from Jinan, China, affected what seem to be the personal Gmail accounts of hundreds of users including, among others, senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military personnel and journalists.
The goal of this effort seems to have been to monitor the contents of these users' emails, with the perpetrators apparently using stolen passwords to change peoples' forwarding and delegation settings.
Gmail users affected by this security mishap should have already been notified. Google's security team outlined a number of steps that Gmail users can take to protect themselves, which should only take about "ten minutes."
Google recommended the following:
Use two-factor authentication;
Choose a strong password;
Watch for suspicious activity warnings in your Gmail account;
Check your settings for odd forwarding.
| Malware |
BadUSB Malware Code Released — Turn USB Drives Into Undetectable CyberWeapons | https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/badusb-malware-code-released-turn-usb.html | Once again USB has come up as a major threat to a vast number of users who use USB drives – including USB sticks and keyboards. Security researchers have released a bunch of hacking tools that can be used to convert USB drive into silent malware installer.
This vulnerability has come about to be known as "BadUSB", whose source code has been published by the researchers on the open source code hosting website Github, demanding manufacturers either to beef up protections for USB flash drive firmware and fix the problem or leave hundreds of millions of users vulnerable to the attack.
The code released by researchers Adam Caudill and Brandon Wilson has capability to spread itself by hiding in the firmware meant to control the ways in which USB devices connect to computers. The hack utilizes the security flaw in the USB that allows an attacker to insert malicious code into their firmware.
But Wait! What this means is that this critical vulnerability is now available online for hackers, cyber criminals and everybody to use so as to infect as many computers as they want.
SOURCE CODE AVAILABLE ONLINE TO EVERYBODY
In a talk at the Derbycon Hacker Conference in Louisville last week, the duo were able to reverse engineer the USB firmware, infect it with their own code, and essentially hijack the associated device. The researchers also underlined the danger of the Bad USB hack by going in-depth of the code.
The security hole was first revealed by researchers from Berlin-based Security Research Labs (SRLabs in Germany) at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas two months ago, and here you can watch the video of their presentation. The German researchers didn't publish their source code because they thought it to be dangerous and too hard to patch.
"We really hope that releasing this will push device manufactures to insist on signed firmware updates, and that Phison will add support for signed updates to all of the controllers it sells," Caudill said in a blog post. "Phison isn't the only player here, though they are the most common—I'd love to see them take the lead in improving security for these devices."
THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD
The good news is that this vulnerability presents in only one USB manufacturer Phison electronics, a Taiwanese electronics company. But the bad side of it is that Phison USB sticks can infect any given device they are plugged into, and the company has not yet revealed who it manufactures USB sticks for. This is the fact it is still unclear as to how widespread the problem may be at the moment.
A Phison USB stick can infect any type of computer, but it isn't clear if its able to infect any other USB device that is plugged into them afterwards or not. However, Phison controllers are found in a very large number of USB thumb drives available on the market.
BadUSB VULNERABILITY IS UNPATCHABLE
The flaw in USB basically modifies the firmware of USB devices, which can easily be done from inside the operating system, and hides the malware in USB devices in a way that it become almost impossible to detect it. The flaw goes worst when complete formatting or deleting the contents of a USB device wouldn't vanish the malicious code, since its embedded in the firmware.
According to Wired, the vulnerability is "practically unpatchable" because it exploits "the very way that USB is designed." Once infected, each USB device will infect anything it's connected to, or any new USB stick coming into it.
IMPACT OF BadUSB ATTACK
Once compromised, the USB devices can reportedly:
enter keystrokes
alter files
affect Internet activity
infect other systems, as well, and then spread to additional USB devices
spoofs a network card and change the computer's DNS setting to redirect traffic
emulates a keyboard and issue commands on behalf of the logged-in user, for example to exfiltrate files or install malware
During their Derbycon demonstration, the two researchers replicated the emulated keyboard attack, but also showed how to create a hidden partition on thumb drives to defeat forensic tools and how to bypass the password for protected partitions on some USB drives that provide such a feature.
MANUFACTURER DENIES THE PROBLEM
Security researchers tried to contact Phison electronics, the manufacturer of the vulnerable USB devices, but the company "repeatedly denied that the attack was possible."
| Malware |
WannaCry Coding Mistakes Can Help Files Recovery Even After Infection | https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/wannacry-ransomware-unlock-files.html | Last month WannaCry ransomware hit more than 300,000 PCs across the world within just 72 hours by using its self-spreading capabilities to infect vulnerable Windows PCs, particularly those using vulnerable versions of the OS, within the same network.
But that doesn't mean WannaCry was a high-quality piece of ransomware.
Security researchers have recently discovered some programming errors in the code of the WannaCrypt ransomware worm that might allow victims to restore their locked files without paying for any decryption key.
After deeply analysing the WannaCry code, security company at Kaspersky Lab found that the ransomware was full of mistakes that could allow some of its victims to restore their files with publicly available free recovery tools or even with simple commands.
Anton Ivanov, senior malware analyst at Kaspersky Lab, along with colleagues Fedor Sinitsyn and Orkhan Mamedov, detailed three critical errors made by WannaCry developers that could allow sysadmins to restore potentially lost files.
According to researchers, the issues reside in the way WannaCry ransomware deletes original files after encryption. In general, the malware first renames files to change their extension to ".WNCRYT," encrypt them and then delete the original files.
Recovering Read-only Files
Since it is not at all possible for malicious software to directly encrypt or modify read-only files, WannaCry copies the files and creates their encrypted copies.
While the original files remain untouched but are given a 'hidden' attribute, getting the original data back simply requires victims to restore their normal attributes.
That wasn't the only mistake within the WannaCry's code, as in some cases, the malware fails to delete the files after encrypting them properly.
Recovering Files from the System Drive (i.e. C drive)
Researchers have said that files stored on the important folders, like Desktop or Documents folder, can not be recovered without the decryption key because WannaCry has been designed to overwrite original files with random data before removal.
However, researchers noticed that other files stored outside of important folders on the system drive could be restored from the temporary folder using a data recovery software.
"...the original file will be moved to %TEMP%\%d.WNCRYT (where %d denotes a numeric value). These files contain the original data and are not overwritten," researchers said.
Recovering Files from the Non-System Drives
Researchers also found that for non-system drives, the WannaCry Ransomware creates a hidden '$RECYCLE' folder and moves original files into this directory after encryption. You can recover those files just by unhiding the '$RECYCLE' folder.
Also, due to "synchronization errors" in WannaCry's code, in many cases the original files remain in the same directory, making it possible for victims to restore insecurely deleted files using available data recovery software.
Programming Blunders: The New Hope for WannaCry Victims
These programming errors in the code of WannaCry offer hope to many victims.
"If you were infected with WannaCry ransomware there is a good possibility that you will be able to restore a lot of the files on the affected computer," Kaspersky Lab wrote in a blog post published Thursday. "The code quality is very low."
"To restore files, you can use the free utilities available for data recovery."
The recovery of files infected by WannaCry was first made possible by French researchers Adrien Guinet and Benjamin Delpy, who made a free WannaCry decryption tool that works on Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Server 2008.
It's been almost a month since WannaCry epidemic hit computers worldwide, but the hackers behind the self-spread ransomware, which leverages leaked NSA's Windows SMB exploits EternalBlue and DoublePulsar, have not been identified yet.
While police and cyber security firms continue to search for answers surrounding the origins of the WannaCry campaign, Dark web intelligence firm Flashpoint recently indicated the perpetrators might be Chinese, based on its linguistic analysis.
| Malware |
Distributed Red Team Operations with Cobalt Strike | https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/distributed-red-team-operations-with.html | What if you could easily host malicious websites, send phishing emails, and manage compromised hosts across diverse internet addresses?
This week's Cobalt Strike adds the ability to manage multiple attack servers at once.
Here's how it works:
When you connect to two or more servers, Cobalt Strike will show a switch bar with buttons for each server at the bottom of your window. Click a button to make that server active. It's a lot like using tabs to switch between pages in a web browser.
To make use of multiple servers, designate a role for each one. Assign names to each server's button to easily remember its role.
Dumbly connecting to multiple servers isn't very exciting. The fun comes when you seamlessly use Cobalt Strike features between servers. For example:
Designate one server for phishing and another for reconnaissance. Go to the reconnaissance server, setup the system profiler website. Use the phishing tool to deliver the reconnaissance website through the phishing server. This is easy to do because Cobalt Strike's phishing dialog lets you embed sites setup in any server you're connected to.
Web drive-by exploits are especially interesting. Clone a website and embed an exploit on one server. Set the embedded exploit to reference a Beacon listener on another server. When a vulnerable user visits this site, their system will start beaconing to the beacon server.
This is trivial to do because Cobalt Strike will let you setup an attack that references a listener on any server you're connected to.
Distributed operations is a data headache for red teams. Each penetration testing server is a silo with a limited picture of the engagement. Cobalt Strike makes great strides to solve this problem. When you ask for a report, Cobalt Strike queries each server you're connected to, combines the data, and generates one report. A phishing attack sent from one server that sends users to a malicious website on another server will show in one report with all of the information properly cross-referenced.
Are you curious what all of this looks like? Watch the video:
Cobalt Strike is available Here. A 21-day trial is available. Press the Download link and provide your email address. The latest Armitage can connect to multiple servers too. This feature is more interesting in the context of Cobalt Strike because more features are usable across server instances.
| Vulnerability |
Chinese Hackers Exploited Latest SolarWinds 0-Day in Targeted Attacks | https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/chinese-hackers-exploit-latest.html | Microsoft on Tuesday disclosed that the latest string of attacks targeting SolarWinds Serv-U managed file transfer service with a now-patched remote code execution (RCE) exploit is the handiwork of a Chinese threat actor dubbed "DEV-0322."
The revelation comes days after the Texas-based IT monitoring software maker issued fixes for the flaw that could enable adversaries to remotely run arbitrary code with privileges, allowing them to perform actions like install and run malicious payloads or view and alter sensitive data.
Tracked as CVE-2021-35211, the RCE flaw resides in Serv-U's implementation of the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol. While it was previously revealed that the attacks were limited in scope, SolarWinds said it's "unaware of the identity of the potentially affected customers."
Attributing the intrusions with high confidence to DEV-0322 (short for "Development Group 0322") based on observed victimology, tactics, and procedures, Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) said the adversary is known for targeting entities in the U.S. Defense Industrial Base Sector and software companies.
"This activity group is based in China and has been observed using commercial VPN solutions and compromised consumer routers in their attacker infrastructure," according to MSTIC, which discovered the zero-day after it detected as many as six anomalous malicious processes being spawned from the main Serv-U process, suggesting a compromise.
The development also marks the second time a China-based hacking group has exploited vulnerabilities in SolarWinds software as a fertile field for targeted attacks against corporate networks.
Back in December 2020, Microsoft disclosed that a separate espionage group may have been taking advantage of the IT infrastructure provider's Orion software to drop a persistent backdoor called Supernova on infected systems. The intrusions have since been attributed to a China-linked threat actor called Spiral.
Additional indicators of compromise associated with the attack can be accessed from SolarWinds' revised advisory here.
Update: This article has been updated to reflect that attackers didn't exploit the SolarWinds flaw to target defense and software companies. As of now, no information has been provided on who was attacked during this zero-day attack.
| 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.
| Malware |
Major VBulletin based websites are vulnerable to Hackers; Pakistani forums defaced by Indian Hackers | https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/major-vbulletin-based-websites-are.html | vBulletin is a publishing suite that allows users to create and publish a variety of content, including: forums, blogs, and polls.
If you currently use an older version of vBulletin on your website, you might be opening up your site to an attack as some serious security vulnerabilities, which allows hackers to access your hosting admin panel.
Two Indian Hackers, going by virtual name Ne0-h4ck3r & Google-warri0r has developed an exploit of known vBulletin vulnerability, that can be used to add a user remotely to vBulletin customer panel with admin privileges.
According to Hackers, vBulletin versions 4.x.x.x are affected to their exploit. It isn't quite clear the extent of the exploit, however, hundreds of major websites on vBulletin have been reported to be affected.
Here's a list of some domains that have been used so far in this attack:
https://usasexguide.info/
https://www.desironak.com/
https://www.pakistanipoint.com
https://www.cssexam.com/forum.php
https://www.bankers.pk/
https://voiceofkarachi.com/
https://www.pakguns.com/
Hackers targeting Pakistani forums, as well as some USA based forums also i.e. Below you can see the database from usasexguide.info forum having thousands of registered users, was hacked by team recently.
vBulletin users are advised to upgrade to the latest version to fix the issue.
| Vulnerability |
XSS vulnerability in 4shared and NATO Multimedia Library Exposed | https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/xss-vulnerability-in-4shared-and-nato.html | Inj3ct0r Team found cross site scripting vulnerability in 4shared , a file sharing site. Vulnerability link is exposed in a note available at their website.
In general, cross-site scripting refers to that hacking technique that leverages vulnerabilities in the code of a web application to allow an attacker to send malicious content from an end-user and collect some type of data from the victim.
Also same hackers claiming to get access over a private server of NATO Library and expose the links online. Website titled "NATO Multimedia Library Online Catalog".
Inj3ct0r member told The Hacker News, "We found another secret NATO server. We received a root on the server and gave the world the hidden database to NATO personnel. Now everyone can look for a secret document."
These three servers are available online without authorization, but its not confirm that servers got hacked or not.
| Vulnerability |
Network Enabled Samsung TVs vulnerable to Denial of Service Attack | https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/network-enabled-samsung-tvs-vulnerable.html | A vulnerability in the latest firmware of the network-enabled Samsung TV models allows potential attackers to crash the vulnerable devices using Denial of Service (DoS) Attack, according to security researcher Malik Mesellem.
According to Malik, The web server (DMCRUIS/0.1) installed on Smart TVs on port TCP/5600 can be crashed to reboot the device, if attacker will send a long HTTP GET request on TV's ip address.
Malik successfully tested the exploit on his Samsung PS50C7700 plasma TV, as shown in the video demonstration below:
In the Demo, The TV is connected by ethernet cable to a home network, and after running the exploit against TV's ip address - A few seconds later, the TV would restart and repeat the process.
This means that a potential attacker only needs to obtain access to the LAN that the TV has joined, in order to attack it. This can be done either by breaking into a wireless access point or by infecting a computer on the same network with malware.
Malik discovered the flaw on July 21st, 2013, published a proof-of-concept exploit on his website and vulnerability dubbed CVE-2013-4890. I think, now we need firewall or antivirus protection for our television set too.
Samsung did not immediately return a request for comment sent via email.
| Vulnerability |
Critical Flaw in GoAhead Web Server Could Affect Wide Range of IoT Devices | https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/goahead-web-server-hacking.html | Cybersecurity researchers today uncovered details of two new vulnerabilities in the GoAhead web server software, a tiny application widely embedded in hundreds of millions of Internet-connected smart devices.
One of the two vulnerabilities, assigned as CVE-2019-5096, is a critical code execution flaw that can be exploited by attackers to execute malicious code on vulnerable devices and take control over them.
The first vulnerability resides in the way multi-part/form-data requests are processed within the base GoAhead web server application, affecting GoAhead Web Server versions v5.0.1, v.4.1.1, and v3.6.5.
According to the researchers at Cisco Talos, while processing a specially crafted HTTP request, an attacker exploiting the vulnerability can cause use-after-free condition on the server and corrupt heap structures, leading to code execution attacks.
The second vulnerability, assigned as CVE-2019-5097, also resides in the same component of the GoAhead Web Server and can be exploited in the same way, but this one leads to denial-of-service attacks.
"A specially crafted HTTP request can lead to an infinite loop in the process (resulting in 100 percent CPU utilization). The request can be unauthenticated in the form of GET or POST requests and does not require the requested resource to exist on the server," the researchers say.
However, it's not necessary that both vulnerabilities could be exploited in all embedded devices running the vulnerable versions of the GoAhead web server.
That's because, according to the researchers, since GoAhead is a customizable web application framework, companies implement the application according to their environment and requirements, due to which the flaws "may not be reachable on all builds."
"Additionally, pages that require authentication do not allow access to the vulnerability without authentication as the authentication is handled before reaching the upload handler," the researchers explain.
Talos researchers reported the two vulnerabilities to EmbedThis, the developer of the GoAhead Web Server application, in late August this year, and the vendor addressed the issues and released security patches two weeks ago.
| Vulnerability |
MrbMiner Crypto-Mining Malware Links to Iranian Software Company | https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/mrbminer-crypto-mining-malware-links-to.html | A relatively new crypto-mining malware that surfaced last year and infected thousands of Microsoft SQL Server (MSSQL) databases has now been linked to a small software development company based in Iran.
The attribution was made possible due to an operational security oversight, said researchers from cybersecurity firm Sophos, that led to the company's name inadvertently making its way into the cryptominer code.
First documented by Chinese tech giant Tencent last September, MrbMiner was found to target internet-facing MSSQL servers with the goal of installing a cryptominer, which hijacks the processing power of the systems to mine Monero and funnel them into accounts controlled by the attackers.
The name "MrbMiner" comes after one of the domains used by the group to host their malicious mining software.
"In many ways, MrbMiner's operations appear typical of most cryptominer attacks we've seen targeting internet-facing servers," said Gabor Szappanos, threat research director at SophosLabs.
"The difference here is that the attacker appears to have thrown caution to the wind when it comes to concealing their identity. Many of the records relating to the miner's configuration, its domains and IP addresses, signpost to a single point of origin: a small software company based in Iran."
MrbMiner sets about its task by carrying out brute-force attacks against the MSSQL server's admin account with various combinations of weak passwords.
Upon gaining access, a Trojan called "assm.exe" is downloaded to establish persistence, add a backdoor account for future access (username: Default, password: @fg125kjnhn987), and retrieve the Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency miner payload that's run on the targeted server.
Now according to Sophos, these payloads — called by various names such as sys.dll, agentx.dll, and hostx.dll, were deliberately-misnamed ZIP files, each of which contained the miner binary and a configuration file, among others.
Cryptojacking attacks are typically harder to attribute given their anonymous nature, but with MrbMiner, it appears that the attackers made the mistake of hardcoding the payload location and the command-and-control (C2) address into the downloader.
One of the domains in question, "vihansoft[.]ir," was not only registered to the Iranian software development company but the compiled miner binary included in the payload left telltale signs that connected the malware to a now-shuttered GitHub account that was used to host it.
While database servers, owing to their powerful processing capabilities, are a lucrative target for cybercriminals looking to distribute cryptocurrency miners, the development adds to growing concerns that heavily-sanctioned countries like North Korea and Iran are using cryptocurrency as a means to evade penalties designed to isolate them and to facilitate illicit activities.
"Cryptojacking is a silent and invisible threat that is easy to implement and very difficult to detect," Szappanos said. "Further, once a system has been compromised it presents an open door for other threats, such as ransomware."
"It is therefore important to stop cryptojacking in its tracks. Look out for signs such as a reduction in computer speed and performance, increased electricity use, devices overheating and increased demands on the CPU."
| Cyber_Attack |
Hackers infect e-commerce sites by compromising their advertising partner | https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/magecart-hacking-credit-cards.html | Magecart strikes again, one of the most notorious hacking groups specializes in stealing credit card details from poorly-secured e-commerce websites.
According to security researchers from RiskIQ and Trend Micro, cybercriminals of a new subgroup of Magecart, labeled as "Magecart Group 12," recently successfully compromised nearly 277 e-commerce websites by using supply-chain attacks.
Magecart is the same group of digital credit card skimmers which made headlines last year for carrying out attacks against some big businesses including Ticketmaster, British Airways, and Newegg.
Typically, the Magecart hackers compromise e-commerce sites and insert malicious JavaScript code into their checkout pages that silently captures payment information of customers making purchasing on the sites and then send it to the attacker's remote server.
However, the researchers from the two firms today revealed that instead of directly compromising targeted websites, the Magecart Group 12 hacked and inserted its skimming code into a third-party JavaScript library, enabling all websites using that script to load the malicious code.
The third-party library targeted by Magecart Group 12 is by a French online advertising company, called Adverline, whose service is being used by hundreds of European e-commerce websites to display ads.
"At the time of our research, the websites embedded with Adverline's re-targeting script loaded Magecart Group 12's skimming code, which, in turn, skims payment information entered on web pages then sends it to its remote server," Trend Micro says.
What's more? Security researcher Yonathan Klijnsma at RiskIQ discovered that the skimmer code for MageCart Group 12 protects itself from de-obfuscation and analysis by performing an integrity check twice on itself.
"Magecart Group 12 uses a skimming toolkit that employs two obfuscated scripts. The first script is mostly for anti-reversing while the second script is the main data-skimming code," the researchers say.
Upon infection, the data-skimming code first checks if it is executed on an appropriate shopping cart web page. It does so by detecting related strings in the URL like 'checkout,' 'billing,' 'purchase,' 'panier,' which means 'basket' in French, and 'kasse,' which means 'checkout' in German.
Once it detects any of these strings in the URL, the script will start performing the skimming behavior by copying both the form name and values keyed in by the user on the webpage's typing form.
The stolen payment and billing data are then stored in the JavaScript LocalStorage with the key name 'Cache' in Base64 format. To specify individual victims, the code also generates a random number which it reserves into LocalStorage with key name E-tag.
"A JavaScript event 'unload' is triggered whenever the user closes or refreshes the payment web-page. The script then sends the skimmed payment data, the random number (E-tag), and the e-commerce website's domain to a remote server through HTTP POST, with Base64 coding on the entire, sent date," Trend Micro researchers explain.
The researchers also published the IOCs associated with this Group 12's operation, which includes the domains the skimmers used for injecting their code into the affected websites and receiving the stolen payment information.
Upon contacting, Adverline patched the issue immediately and removed the malicious code from its JavaScript library.
| Cyber_Attack |
Instagram Bug Allowed Anyone to View Private Accounts Without Following Them | https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/instagram-bug-allowed-anyone-to-view.html | Instagram has patched a new flaw that allowed anyone to view archived posts and stories posted by private accounts without having to follow them.
"This bug could have allowed a malicious user to view targeted media on Instagram," security researcher Mayur Fartade said in a Medium post today. "An attacker could have been able to see details of private/archived posts, stories, reels, IGTV without following the user using Media ID."
Fartade disclosed the issue to Facebook's security team on April 16, 2021, following which the shortcoming was patched on June 15. He was also awarded $30,000 as part of the company's bug bounty program.
Although the attack requires knowing the media ID associated with an image, video, or album, by brute-forcing the identifiers, Fartade demonstrated that it was possible to craft a POST request to a GraphQL endpoint and retrieve sensitive data.
As a consequence of the flaw, details such as like/comment/save count, display_url, and image.uri corresponding to the media ID could be extracted even without following the targeted user, alongside exposing the Facebook Page linked to an Instagram account.
Fartade said he also discovered a second endpoint on April 23 that revealed the same set of information. Facebook has since addressed both the leaky endpoints.
| Vulnerability |
CryptorBit Ransomware that scam for Ransom money with fake Decryption Keys | https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/cryptorbit-ransoware-that-scam-for.html | We are continuously keeping our eye on new variants of the widely spread Ransomware family like Cryptolocker, Prison Locker, Copycat and Locker which encrypts your files and ask for a random amount to decrypt it.
If infected by such malware, to be very honest, there is no hope for recovering your documents without paying a ransom amount to the cyber criminals.
Online users are now facing another similar ransomware called 'CryptorBit', (Virustotal report) first spotted on September 2013. It is not a variant of Cryptolocker but it does exactly the same thing i.e. Encrypt all the files on the Hard Disk.
CryptorBit is an infection that activates by clicking links in a spam message or malicious email, or websites while browsing the web, or by opening an attachment in an email from a malicious source.
Once your system gets infected by the CryptorBit, it will encrypt your files and hold them until a ransom of $50 - $500 or more is not paid. It will display a warning for you i.e. "YOUR PERSONAL FILES ARE ENCYPTED", following a warning message i.e. "All files including video, photos and documents, etc. on your computer are encrypted".
The affected file types include Word files, Excel files, Pictures, Music, Movies, Quickbooks files, PDFs and all other data files on your system.
The Warning note on the screen instructs the victim to download the Tor browser and access an onion-based hidden website for paying the ransom money. In addition, it may threaten you to pay the ransom within 24 hours. Otherwise, it will damage all of your personal and system files completely.
SCAM-WARE
CryptorBit Malware is totally a scam designed by cyber criminals, because even after paying the ransom amount it will not decrypt your files, sounds scary but it's true. It forces users to pay for the fake private key to decrypt files.
CryptorBit not even fraud your money but also cause damage to your PC and Interfere with your privacy.
The most common windows folder location where the Cryptorbit virus lives - "%AppData%" and can be easily removed using Antivirus tools; but unlike traditional Ransomware, you can decrypt your files using system utility 'System Restore'.
The spam emails may appear to be sent from people you know, so it's very important for users to be careful while reading such malicious emails and if it doesn't look right, it's probably not.
The best protection against these infections is a good backup. We strongly advise people to keep their important files on their servers, and not on their desktops or local folders.
| Malware |
Finland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs networks hit by sophisticated Malware attack | https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/Finland-Ministry-Foreign-Affairs-malware-espionage-red-october.html | Finnish commercial broadcaster MTV3 reports that the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affair networks has been targeted in a four-year-long cyber espionage operation.
Finland's foreign minister said, "I can confirm there has been a severe and large hacking in the ministry's data network,"
A large scale spying attack targeted the communications between Finland and the European Union using a malware, similar to, and more sophisticated than Red October. The breach was uncovered during the early part of this year.
MTV3 also mentioned that the breach was not discovered by the Finns themselves, but from a foreign tip-off reported to CERT.FI. Further the Finnish authorities kept the information under wraps for continuing the forensics.
There are indications that information with the lowest level security classification has been compromised, he said.
In January, 2013, we had reported about Red October Cyber-espionage operation that targeted the computer networks of various international diplomatic service agencies. According security experts from Kaspersky Lab, the cyber-espionage campaign was started since 2007 and is still active.
It is possible that Red October has been just one campaign from the same actor, and there could be others that haven't been discovered yet.
According to experts, Red October's exploits appear to have Chinese origins, whereas the malware modules may have a Russian background. So if this Finnish malware attack somewhere linked to Red October, then Russia and China are suspected of responsibility for the snooping.
Red October malware was sent via a spear-phishing email and has been tempting its targets into letting it exploit a number of relatively minor security vulnerabilities in programs such as Microsoft's Excel and Word, as well as poisoned PDFs and Java exploits.
Besides Finland, other countries could be the victim of the same attack. The Finnish Security Intelligence Service is investigating the matter.
| Vulnerability |
Fake Flappy Bird App Planted by Hackers to Steal Photos from Device | https://thehackernews.com/2014/09/fake-flappy-bird-app-planted-by-hackers.html | As far, you have probably heard about the biggest digital exposure of private and very personal nude photographs of as many as 100 female celebrities including Jenny McCarthy, Kristin Dunst, Mary E Winstead, and Oscar winner Lawrence and Kate Upton, that was surfaced on notorious bulletin-board 4chan, and anonymous image board AnonIB over the weekend.
It was believed that the group of hackers allegedly taken celebrities photos from their Apple iCloud backups after their iCloud accounts were compromised, but users of devices running Google's Android could have been targeted too.
A forum post on anonymous image board AnonIP shows that the group of hackers may have used a cloned Flappy Bird app to steal and collect the naked photos of females from their Android devices and then send them to remote servers.
Experts believe that the group may have been stealing and trading nude and very personal photos of more than 100 female celebrities for more than two years, gathered on the "stolen" forum on image board AnonIB.
The developer of fake Flappy Bird app took advantage of the user's "carelessness" of granting the permissions to Android apps.
The post on a hackers' forum, written in late July this year, was discovered by security consultant Nik Cubrilovic. It detailed how the supposed developer had developed a malware-ridden "clone" of Flappy Bird app for Android devices that would exploit app permissions granted during installation in an effort to steal the photos.
"I am a fucking genious [sic]… Hear me out. I.. modded… the app," the developer explained in the post. "It now secretly downloads all of the phones pictures to my server when the game is running. Note: this app will only work for android," he added.
The developer want to release a copy of cloned Flappy Bird app on the Google's Play Store but he didn't want to risk his developer license, as the app violates Google play's terms. But, to solve the problem, he was searching for a second developer account, specifically created for the purpose of stealing pictures from infected Android devices.
He also asked for financial support from his fellow anons in order to make a second Google Play developer account and promises to "post any wins [stolen photos] obtained in this thread." A new developer licence cost $20.
All game is based on the users' negligence to check the permissions of mobile apps they granted without even knowing of the fact that any app is asking access to your device' stored photographs. It is extremely phishy, but many of you don't even pay attention to these details and accept those permissions blindly.
Flappy Bird, developed by a 29-year old, Dong Nguyen, was one of the top free gaming apps on Google's Play Store. But after the developer of Flappy Bird pulled the gaming app from both the Apple and Google app stores, it led to the creation of dozens and dozens of Flappy Bird clones, out of which many identified as malicious.
| Malware |
A New Linux Malware Targeting High-Performance Computing Clusters | https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/a-new-linux-malware-targeting-high.html | High-performance computing clusters belonging to university networks as well as servers associated with government agencies, endpoint security vendors, and internet service providers have been targeted by a newly discovered backdoor that gives attackers the ability to execute arbitrary commands on the systems remotely.
Cybersecurity firm ESET named the malware "Kobalos" — a nod to a "mischievous creature" of the same name from Greek mythology — for its "tiny code size and many tricks."
"Kobalos is a generic backdoor in the sense that it contains broad commands that don't reveal the intent of the attackers," researchers Marc-Etienne M. Léveillé and Ignacio Sanmillan said in a Tuesday analysis. "In short, Kobalos grants remote access to the file system, provides the ability to spawn terminal sessions, and allows proxying connections to other Kobalos-infected servers."
Besides tracing the malware back to attacks against a number of high-profile targets, ESET said the malware is capable of taking aim at Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, and possibly AIX and Windows machines, with code references hinting at Windows 3.11 and Windows 95 legacy operating systems.
Kobalos infections are believed to have started in late 2019 and have since continued to remain active throughout 2020.
The initial compromise vector used to deploy the malware and the ultimate objective of the threat actor remains unclear as yet, but the presence of a trojanized OpenSSH client in one of the compromised systems alludes to the possibility that "credential stealing could be one of the ways Kobalos propagates."
No other malware artifacts were found on the systems, nor has there been any evidence that could potentially reveal the attackers' intent.
"We have not found any clues to indicate whether they steal confidential information, pursue monetary gain, or are after something else," the researchers said.
But what they did uncover shows the multi-platform malware harbors some unusual techniques, including features that could turn any compromised server into a command-and-control (C&C) server for other hosts compromised by Kobalos.
In other words, infected machines can be used as proxies that connect to other compromised servers, which can then be leveraged by the operators to create new Kobalos samples that use this new C&C server to create a proxy chain comprising of multiple infected servers to reach their targets.
To maintain stealth, Kobalos authenticates connections with infected machines using a 32-byte password that's generated and then encrypted with a 512-bit RSA private key. Subsequently, a set of RC4 keys are used — one each for inbound traffic and outbound traffic — for communications with the C&C server.
The backdoor also leverages a complex obfuscation mechanism to thwart forensic analysis by recursively calling the code to perform a wide range of subtasks.
"The numerous well-implemented features and the network evasion techniques show the attackers behind Kobalos are much more knowledgeable than the typical malware author targeting Linux and other non-Windows systems," the researchers said.
"Their targets, being quite high-profile, also show that the objective of the Kobalos operators isn't to compromise as many systems as possible. Its small footprint and network evasion techniques may explain why it went undetected until we approached victims with the results of our Internet-wide scan."
| Malware |
Targeted Phishing Attacks Successfully Hacked Top Executives At 150+ Companies | https://thehackernews.com/2020/04/targeted-phishing-attacks-successfully.html | In the last few months, multiple groups of attackers successfully compromised corporate email accounts of at least 156 high-ranking officers at various firms based in Germany, the UK, Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Dubbed 'PerSwaysion,' the newly spotted cyberattack campaign leveraged Microsoft file-sharing services—including Sway, SharePoint, and OneNote—to launch highly targeted phishing attacks.
According to a report Group-IB Threat Intelligence team published today and shared with The Hacker News, PerSwaysion operations attacked executives of more than 150 companies around the world, primarily with businesses in finance, law, and real estate sectors.
"Among these high-ranking officer victims, more than 20 Office365 accounts of executives, presidents, and managing directors appeared."
So far successful and still ongoing, most PerSwaysion operations were orchestrated by scammers from Nigeria and South Africa who used a Vue.js JavaScript framework-based phishing kit, evidently, developed by and rented from Vietnamese speaking hackers.
"By late September 2019, PerSwaysion campaign has adopted much mature technology stacks, using Google appspot for phishing web application servers and Cloudflare for data backend servers."
Like most phishing attacks aiming to steal Microsoft Office 365 credentials, fraudulent emails sent as part of PerSwaysion operation also lured victims with a non-malicious PDF attachment containing 'read now' link to a file hosted with Microsoft Sway.
"The attackers pick legitimate cloud-based content sharing services, such as Microsoft Sway, Microsoft SharePoint, and OneNote to avoid traffic detection," the researchers said.
Next, the specially crafted presentation page on Microsoft Sway service further contains another 'read now' link that redirects users to the actual phishing site—waiting for the victims to enter their email account credentials or other confidential information.
Once stolen, attackers immediately move on to the next step and download victims' email data from the server using IMAP APIs and then impersonate their identities to further target people who have recent email communications with the current victim and hold important roles in the same or other companies.
"Finally, they generate new phishing PDF files with the current victim's full name, email address, legal company name. These PDF files are sent to a selection of new people who tend to be outside of the victim's organization and hold significant positions. The PerSwaysion operators typically delete impersonating emails from the outbox to avoid suspicion."
"Evidence indicates that scammers are likely to use LinkedIn profiles to assess potential victim positions. Such a tactic reduces the possibility of early warning from the current victim's co-workers and increases the success rate of new phishing cycle."
Though there's no clear evidence on how attackers are using compromised corporate data, researchers believe it can be 'sold in bulk to other financial scammers to conduct traditional monetary scams.'
Group-IB has also set-up an online web-page where anyone can check if their email address was compromised as part of PerSwaysion attacks—however, you should only use it and enter your email if you're highly expecting to be attacked.
| Cyber_Attack |
EC-Council Launches Center of Advanced Security Training (CAST) ! | https://thehackernews.com/2011/03/ec-council-launches-center-of-advanced.html | EC-Council Launches Center for Advanced Security Training (CAST) to Address the Growing Need for Advanced Information Security Knowledge
Mar 9, 2011, Albuquerque, NM - According to the report, Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th President, released in November 2010 by Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), it is highlighted that technical proficiency is critical to the defense of IT networks and infrastructures. And there is evidently a shortage of such personnel in the current cyber defense workforce.
The United States alone needs between 10,000 to 30,000 well-trained personnel who have specialized skills required to effectively guard its national assets. In essence, there is a huge shortage of highly technically skilled information security professionals. The problem is both of quantity, and quality, and this is not a problem just for the government space. Public and private companies are also in dire straits trying to fill such staffing needs.
The information security workforce requires not just technically proficient people to operate and support existing systems that are already deployed. There is a great demand for highly skilled professionals who can design security systems, application engineers who can write secure codes, as well as forensics experts who are well trained with highly advanced computer examination skills. Threats to SCADA and Critical Infrastructures are mounting and nations cannot ignore that these threats needs effective methods and manpower to be mitigated, should it ever occur. With the exponential growth of mobile devices adoption, and higher dependency on wireless communications, hackers are finding more ways and means to exploit these technology, and crippling organization and agencies alike.
One of the keys to address these issues will be to be adequately train and equip cyber defenders with cutting edge technological skills that are required to prevent such attacks and build a sound perimeter defense to deter these threats. A company needs to ensure that its current cyber workforce is well-trained, and as an individual, one needs to maintain technical proficiencies that are up-to-date in order to stay employable. Without a doubt, training is essential.
Recognizing this gap, EC-Council has launched the Center of Advanced Security Training (CAST), to address the deficiency in the lack of highly technically skilled information security professionals. CAST will provide advanced and specialized information security training for specific domains such as application security, penetration testing, computer forensics, social engineering, malware and botnet analysis, among others. These highly technical training programs are designed with industry practitioners to ensure that content are current and relevant, and the focus of CAST training will be its thorough extensive hands-on approach, to enable participants to combat real life scenarios.
"Certification has grown to become a necessity. It is critical for information security professionals to be equipped with the baseline knowledge and skills that any certification provides," said Jay Bavisi, president of EC-Council. He adds, "However, it is the advanced skills and technical proficiency that will make one stand out from its peers. Such skills can only be acquired through specialized and highly technical training. And these are the components that CAST aims to provide to the infosec professional community."
Some of first CAST programs that will be rolled out are Advanced Penetration Testing course by Joseph McCray, an air force veteran who has tested over 150,000 machines in his career alone, and the Digital Mobile Forensics Deep Dive, by Wayne Burke, former cyber crime investigator with the South African police department. There is also the Advanced Application Security course by Tim Pierson, the well-traveled information security consultant and trainer, who had co-authored a book on Virtualization security.
CAST training will be available at all EC-Council hosted conferences and events, and through specially selected training partners. The launch classes for CAST will be at the upcoming TakeDownCon Dallas, from May 15-17, 2011.
For more information on EC-Council Center of Advanced Security Training, please visit https://www.eccouncil.org/CAST
Or contact
Leonard Chin
Director - CAST
[email protected]
About TakeDownCon
TakeDownCon is a brand new information security conference series, created by EC-Council. This highly technical information security conference series differs from others, and it is very focused - the theme of this first of the series is "Taking Down Security", focusing on attack and defense vectors. World class experts including Barnaby Jack, Kanen Flowers, Joe McCray, Rodrigo Branco, Sean Arries, among others, will demonstrate and showcase how security systems can be taken down at ease. This 2 days conference, in a very casual and relaxed setting, is targeted towards information security researchers, engineers and technical professionals. https://www.takedowncon.com
| Malware |
Researchers uncover security holes in China-based Huawei routers | https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/researchers-uncover-security-holes-in.html | Routers made by China-based Huawei Technologies have very few modern security protections and easy-to-find vulnerabilities, two network-security experts stated at the Defcon hacking convention.
Huawei is one of the fastest-growing network and telecommunications equipment makers in the world. The vulnerabilities were discovered and presented by Felix Lindner and Gregor Kopf of the security firm Recurity Labs. They talks about three vulnerabilities demonstrated at the Defcon conference, which included a session hijack, a heap overflow, and a stack overflow, and the discussion of more than 10,000 calls in the firmware code that went to sprintf, an insecure function.
The problem is due to the use of "1990s-style code" in the firmware of some Huawei VRP routers, he said. (The models are the Huawei AR18 and AR 29 series). With a known exploit, an attacker could get access to the systems, log in as administrator, change the admin passwords and reconfigure the systems, which would allow for interception of all the traffic running through the routers.
Both Lindner and Kopf have criticized Huawei for not having a security contact, as well as for its lack of security advisories for its products. Additionally, the researchers say firmware updates don't talk about bugs that may have been fixed.
A U.S.-based Huawei representative provided CNET with the following statement:
We are aware of the media reports on security vulnerabilities in some small Huawei routers and are verifying these claims. Huawei adopts rigorous security strategies and policies to protect the network security of our customers and abides by industry standards and best practices in security risk and incident management. Huawei has established a robust response system to address product security gaps and vulnerabilities, working with our customers to immediately develop contingency plans for all identified security risks, and to resolve any incidents in the shortest possible time. In the interests of customer security, Huawei also calls on the industry to promptly report all product security risks to the solutions provider so that the vendor's CERT team can work with the relevant parties to develop a solution and roll-out schedule.
| Vulnerability |
Cisco Takes Down Ransomware Operation Generating $30 Million in Revenue For Hackers | https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/ransomware-hacking.html | This will blow the minds of every single cyber criminal group out there – Researchers have discovered a group of hackers that is making an estimated $30 Million a year from their online criminal operation.
Yes, $30 MILLLLLLION annually.
Researchers from cyber security firm Cisco announced that they discovered a large ransomware campaign connected to the Angler Exploit Kit, one of the most potent exploit kits available in the underground market for hacking into computers.
Researchers noticed that the large percentage of infected users were connecting to servers belonging to hosting provider Limestone Networks. After digging out more, they estimated that a single hacker or a group of hackers is targeting up to 90,000 end users a day.
Here are some estimates by Cisco researchers after investigating the operation:
Life of an Angler exploit server is one day
Around 3600 users are compromised per day by ransomware
3% of targets paid the average ransom demand of $300 to the hackers
As a result, the researchers estimated that this particular hacker or a group of hackers is generating an annual revenue of more than $34 Million.
Remember, it's just a figure estimated by Cisco researchers following the log files retrieved from just one server. The actual number could be even larger than $30 Million annually, but we can not immediately come to any conclusions.
Researchers from Cisco Systems' Talos Security unit noted that "using simple math [one] can easily determine that this [particular] adversary is making potentially $3 Million a month," but "It is difficult to be 100% accurate with these numbers."
Hackers Making $60 Million Annually
The security firm also claims that this hacker or group of hackers is responsible for up to 50% of Angler Exploit Kit activity, which means that the Angler kit might be generating revenue of more than $60M annually for hackers around the world.
The affected hosting provider Limestone Networks have since shut down the malicious servers after Cisco researchers contacted them.
Angler Exploit kit, first identified in late 2013, has managed to become one of the most popular exploit kits in the market. Essentially it packages a number of hacking tools that take advantage of vulnerabilities Flash, Java and other browser plugins to break into targets' systems.
Now cyber criminals are making use of ransomware in their kit that yield them more money per attack.
"This is a significant blow to the emerging hacker economy," researchers said, "where ransomware and the black market sale of stolen IP, credit card info and personally identifiable information (PII) are generating hundreds of millions of dollars annually."
How to Protect Against Ransomware?
However, there are several ways to help protect your computer against ransomware and other malware threats:
Make sure to keep all of the software on your computer up to date.
Make sure that automatic updating is turned on to get all the latest security updates.
Use secure connections for sensitive transactions.
Never open any attachment unless you know who it's from and why they are sending it.
Use virtual keyboard for internet banking.
Use strong alphanumeric and symbol passwords.
Common sense is another useful weapon in the fight against viruses.
Also Read:
How to protect your computer from CryptoLocker ransomware malware?
Free CryptoLocker Ransomware Decryption Tool Released
CoinVault Ransomware Decryption Tool Released
'Tox' Offers Free build-your-own Ransomware Malware Toolkit
| Cyber_Attack |
Critical Flaw in Apache Struts2 Lets Hackers Take Over Web Servers | https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/apache-struts-vulnerability.html | Security researchers have discovered a critical remote code execution vulnerability in the popular Apache Struts web application framework, allowing a remote attacker to run malicious code on the affected servers.
Apache Struts is a free, open-source, Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework for developing web applications in the Java programming language, which supports REST, AJAX, and JSON.
The vulnerability (CVE-2017-9805) is a programming blunder that resides in the way Struts processes data from an untrusted source. Specifically, Struts REST plugin fails to handle XML payloads while deserializing them properly.
All versions of Apache Struts since 2008 (Struts 2.1.2 - Struts 2.3.33, Struts 2.5 - Struts 2.5.12) are affected, leaving all web applications using the framework's REST plugin vulnerable to remote attackers.
According to one of the security researchers at LGTM, who discovered this flaw, the Struts framework is being used by "an incredibly large number and variety of organisations," including Lockheed Martin, Vodafone, Virgin Atlantic, and the IRS.
"On top of that, [the vulnerability] is incredibly easy for an attacker to exploit this weakness: all you need is a web browser," Man Yue Mo, an LGTM security researcher said.
All an attacker needs is to submit a malicious XML code in a particular format to trigger the vulnerability on the targeted server.
Successful exploitation of the vulnerability could allow an attacker to take full control of the affected server, eventually letting the attacker infiltrate into other systems on the same network.
Mo said this flaw is an unsafe deserialization in Java similar to a vulnerability in Apache Commons Collections, discovered by Chris Frohoff and Gabriel Lawrence in 2015 that also allowed arbitrary code execution.
Many Java applications have since been affected by multiple similar vulnerabilities in recent years.
Since this vulnerability has been patched in Struts version 2.5.13, administrators are strongly advised to upgrade their Apache Struts installation as soon as possible.
More technical details about the vulnerability and proof-of-concept have not been published by the researchers yet, giving admins enough time to upgrade their systems.
| Cyber_Attack |
Facebook Hacker received $33,500 reward for Remote code execution vulnerability | https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/facebook-hacker-received-33500-reward.html | Facebook has paid out its largest Bug Bounty ever of $33,500 to a Brazilian security researcher for discovering and reporting a critical Remote code execution vulnerability, which potentially allows the full control of a server.
In September, 'Reginaldo Silva' found an XML External Entity Expansion vulnerability affecting the part of Drupal that handled OpenID, which allows attacker to read any files on the webserver.
As a feature, Facebook allows users to access their accounts using OpenID in which it receives an XML document from 3rd service and parse it to verify that it is indeed the correct provider or not i.e. Receives at https://www.facebook.com/openid/receiver.php
In November 2013, while testing Facebook's 'Forgot your password' functionality, he found that the OpenID process could be manipulated to execute any command on the Facebook server remotely and also allows to read arbitrary files on the webserver.
In a Proof-of-Concept, he demonstrated that how an attacker can read the content of 'etc/passwd' file from Facebook's server just by manipulating the OpenID request with malicious XML code, and in order to extract the essential login information such as system administrator data and user IDs.
"Since I didn't want to cause the wrong impressions, I decided I would report the bug right away, ask for permission to try to escalate it to a [remote code execution] and then work on it while it was being fixed," he said.
After receiving bug reports from Silva, the Facebook Security team immediately released a short term patch within 3.5 hours, described as:
"We use a tool called Takedown for this sort of task because it runs on a low level, before much of the request processing happens. It allows engineers to define rules to block, log and modify requests. Takedown helped us ensure this line of code ran before anything else for any requests hitting /openid/receiver.php."
The Facebook team determined that the vulnerability could have been escalated to a remote code execution issue, and rewarded Silva accordingly after patching the flaw.
Update: Facebook has accepted the flaw as Remote code execution (RCE). In a post Facebook said, "We discussed the matter further, and due to a valid scenario he theorized involving an administrative feature we are scheduled to deprecate soon, we decided to re-classify the issue as a potential RCE bug".
| Vulnerability |
Beware! Fully-Functional Exploit Released Online for SAP Solution Manager Flaw | https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/beware-fully-functional-released-online.html | Cybersecurity researchers have warned of a publicly available fully-functional exploit that could be used to target SAP enterprise software.
The exploit leverages a vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2020-6207, that stems from a missing authentication check in SAP Solution Manager (SolMan) version 7.2
SAP SolMan is an application management and administration solution that offers end-to-end application lifecycle management in distributed environments, acting as a centralized hub for implementing and maintaining SAP systems such as ERP, CRM, HCM, SCM, BI, and others.
"A successful exploitation could allow a remote unauthenticated attacker to execute highly privileged administrative tasks in the connected SAP SMD Agents," researchers from Onapsis said, referring to the Solution Manager Diagnostics toolset used to analyze and monitor SAP systems.
The vulnerability, which has the highest possible CVSS base score of 10.0, was addressed by SAP as part of its March 2020 updates.
Exploitation methods leveraging the flaw were later demonstrated at the Black Hat conference last August by Onasis researchers Pablo Artuso and Yvan Genuer to highlight possible attack techniques that could be devised by rogue parties to strike SAP servers and obtain root access.
The critical flaw resided in SolMan's User Experience Monitoring (formerly End-user Experience Monitoring or EEM) component, thus putting every business system connected to the Solution Manager at risk of a potential compromise.
The public availability of a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploit code, therefore, leaves unpatched servers exposed to a number of potential malicious attacks, including:
Shutting down any SAP system in the landscape
Causing IT to control deficiencies impacting financial integrity and privacy, leading to regulatory compliance violations
Deleting any data in the SAP systems, causing business disruptions
Assigning superuser privileges to any existing or new user, allowing those users to run critical operations, and
Reading sensitive data from the database
"While exploits are released regularly online, this hasn't been the case for SAP vulnerabilities, for which publicly available exploits have been limited," Onapsis researchers said.
"The release of a public exploit significantly increases the chance of an attack attempt since it also expands potential attackers not only to SAP-experts or professionals, but also to script-kiddies or less-experienced attackers that can now leverage public tools instead of creating their own."
| Vulnerability |
Microsoft Patch Tuesday — January 2019 Security Updates Released | https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/windows-security-updates.html | Microsoft has issued its first Patch Tuesday for this year to address 49 CVE-listed security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and other products, 7 of which are rated critical, 40 important and 2 moderate in severity.
Just one of the security vulnerabilities patched by the tech giant this month has been reported as being publicly known at the time of release, and none are being actively exploited in the wild.
All the seven critical-rated vulnerabilities lead to remote code execution and primarily impact various versions of Windows 10 and Server editions.
Two of the 7 critical flaws affect Microsoft's Hyper-V host OS that fails to properly validate input from an authenticated user on a guest operating system, three affect the ChakraCore scripting engine that fails to properly handle objects in memory in Edge, one affects Edge directly that occurs when the browser improperly handles objects in memory, and one impacts the Windows DHCP client that fails to properly handle certain DHCP responses.
The publicly disclosed flaw but not exploited in the wild, identified as CVE-2019-0579 and rated as important, concerns a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in the Windows Jet Database engine that could be exploited to execute arbitrary code on a victim's system by tricking him into opening a specially-crafted file.
Other "Important" vulnerabilities are addressed in the .NET framework, MS Exchange Server, Edge, Internet Explorer, SharePoint, the Office suite, Windows Data Sharing Service, Visual Studio, Outlook, and Windows Subsystem for Linux.
One of the MS Office flaws patched this month is an information disclosure bug (CVE-2019-0560) which exists when Microsoft Office improperly discloses the contents of its memory.
Attackers can exploit this vulnerability by tricking a user into opening a specially crafted Office document. Successful exploitation could allow an attacker to obtain information from the Office memory that can later be used to compromise a victim's computer or data.
Microsoft credited Tal Dery and Menahem Breuer of Mimecast Research Labs for this vulnerability. To know more details about their findings, you can head on to an advisory and a blog post published by Mimecast.
Lock Screen Bypass Flaw in Skype for Android Also Patched
Another notable bug patched by Microsoft this month is a privilege vulnerability (CVE-2019-0622) vulnerability in Skype for Android that could have allowed hackers to bypass the lock screen and access personal data on an Android device—by merely answering a Skype call to that device.
The Skype flaw has been rated as 'moderate' and requires an attacker to have physical access to your device. A patch for this vulnerability was included in the December 23 release of Skype, but Skype for Android users need to manually update the app from Google Play.
Although Microsoft does not list this as publicly known, the researcher posted a YouTube video demonstrating the vulnerability back on December 31.
Though not part of this months patch update, users are also recommended to download the latest update to patch a memory corruption vulnerability (CVE-2018-8653) in Internet Explorer that Microsoft addressed by releasing an out of band patch in December, as the flaw continues to be exploited in the wild.
Users and system administrators are strongly recommended to apply the latest security patches as soon as possible to keep hackers and cybercriminals away from taking control of their systems.
For installing the latest security patch updates, head on to Settings → Update & Security → Windows Update → Check for updates, on your computer system or you can install the updates manually.
| Vulnerability |
Google fined $57 million by France for lack of transparency and consent | https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/google-privacy-gdpr-fine.html | The French data protection watchdog CNIL has issued its first fine of €50 million (around $57 million) under the European Union's new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law that came into force in May last year.
The fine has been levied on Google for "lack of transparency, inadequate information and lack of valid consent regarding the ads personalization," the CNIL (National Data Protection Commission) said in a press release issued today.
The fine was imposed following the latest CNIL investigation into Google after receiving complaints against the company in May 2018 by two non-profit organizations—None Of Your Business (NOYB) and La Quadrature du Net (LQDN).
Why Has Google Been Fined?
According to the CNIL, Google has been found violating two core privacy rules of the GDPR—Transparency, and Consent.
First, the search engine giant makes it too difficult for users to find essential information, like the "data-processing purposes, the data storage periods or the categories of personal data used for the ads personalisation," by excessively disseminating them across several documents with buttons and links and requiring up to 6 separate actions to get to the information.
And even when the users find the information they are looking for, the CNIL says that information is "not always clear nor comprehensive."
"Users are not able to fully understand the extent of the processing operations carried out by Google," the Commission says. "Similarly, the information communicated is not clear enough so that the user can understand that the legal basis of processing operations for the ads personalization is the consent and not the legitimate interest of the company."
Secondly, Google does not obtain its user's valid consent to process data for ads personalization purposes.
Google Fined For Violating GDPR Law
According to the CNIL, the option to personalize ads is "pre-ticked" when creating an account with Google, effectively making its users unable to exercise their right to opt out of data processing for ads personalization, which is illegal under the GDPR.
Finally, the CNIL says Google by default ticks the boxes that say "I agree to Google's Terms of Service" and that "I agree to the processing of my information as described above and further explained in the Privacy Policy" when users create an account.
However, broader consent like this is also illegal under the GDPR rules.
"The user gives his or her consent in full, for all the processing operations purposes carried out by Google based on this consent (ads personalization, speech recognition, etc.)," the Commission says.
Although the 50 million euros fine seems large, it is small compared to the maximum penalty allowed by GDPR for large companies like Google, which is 20 million euros or 4 percent of the company's annual global revenue, whichever is higher.
Besides Google, NOYB and LQDN also filed a complaint against Facebook in May, so let's see what happens to Facebook next.
Other Record Fines On Google
It's not the first time when Google has been fined under privacy violation. Back in July, the company was levied with a record $5 billion fine by the EU in an Android antitrust case, which Google is currently appealing.
However, a few months back, the search engine giant overhauled its Android business model in Europe, electing to charge a fee to European Android phone manufacturers who want to include its apps on their Android handsets.
The EU also hit Google with a separate antitrust penalty of $2.7 billion (2.4 billion euros) in 2017 over shopping-search results in Google Search.
In response to the GDPR fine imposed by France, Google said in a statement: "People expect high standards of transparency and control from us. We're deeply committed to meeting those expectations and the consent requirements of the GDPR. We're studying the decision to determine our next steps."
| Data_Breaches |
MalDrone — First Ever Backdoor Malware for Drones | https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/MalDrone-backdoor-drone-malware.html | The use of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) called Drones is rapidly transforming the way we go to war. Drones were once used for land surveillance, Delivering Pizza's, then equipped with bombs that changed the way nations conduct war and last year, these hovering drones were also used to hack Smartphones.
Recently, a security researcher has found a backdoor in the Parrot AR Drones manufactured by a French-based company, that could allow a malicious hacker to remotely hijacked the radio controlled flying quadcopter helicopter.
The Parrot AR Drone, revealed at the International CES 2010 in Las Vegas, is a quadricopter helicopter which you can control with your smartphone or tablet. It features two built-in cameras, is easy to fly, and can be controlled without too much danger of it flipping over or smashing into things.
FIRST EVER MALWARE FOR DRONES
Security researcher, Rahul Sasi claimed to have developed the first ever backdoor malware for AR drone ARM Linux system, dubbed Maldrone [MALware DRONE].
Maldrone can be used to remotely hijack drones, as shown in a video demonstration below published by the hacker.
"In this we would show infecting a drone with Maldrone and expecting a reverse tcp connection from drone. Once connection is established we can interact with the software as well as drivers/sensors of drone directly. There is an existing AR drone piloting program. Our backdoors kills the autopilot and takes control. The Backdoor is persistent across resets," video explained.
According to the researcher, Maldrone can interact with the drone's device drivers and sensors silently and allow the hacker to control the drone remotely. As a result, Maldrone could be used to conduct remote surveillance.
Rahul said the Maldrone could also be used to attack other drone makers as well. However, the backdoor could be exploited within a wireless range.
DRONE CRASHES ON WHITE HOUSE GROUNDS
Drones has highlighted the growing security threat posed by small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Just recently, a 2-foot quadcopter drone crashed onto the White House grounds in the early hours of Monday morning, when the president and first lady Michelle Obama were in India.
A government employee told the Secret Service that he lost control of the quadcopter drone before it crashed on the grounds of the White House. However, no one at the White House were in danger.
| Malware |
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.
| Malware |
Ukrainian Police Arrest 6 Hackers Linked to DDoS and Financial Attacks | https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/ukrainian-cybercriminals.html | Ukrainian Police have this week busted out two separate groups of hackers involved in carrying out DDoS attacks against news agencies and stealing money from Ukrainian citizens, respectively.
According to the authorities, the four suspected hackers they arrested last week, all aged from 26 to 30 years, stole more than 5 million Hryvnia (around 178,380 USD) from the bank accounts of Ukrainian citizens by hacking into their computers.
The suspects carried out their attacks by scanning vulnerable computers on the Internet and infecting them with a custom Trojan malware to take full remote control of the systems.
The group then apparently enabled key-logging on the infected computers in an attempt to capture banking credentials of victims when the owners of those infected computers fill in that information on any banking site or their digital currency wallet.
Once getting a hold on the victims banking and financial data, the attackers logged into their online banking accounts and transferred the funds or cryptocurrencies to the accounts controlled by the attackers.
"Usually such actions were carried out at night," the authorities said. "At the same time, the bank did not react to these operations, as they were carried out by the trusted user. The operation was completely legitimate."
Besides stealing money, the suspects also left the backdoor on the victims' computers for further control, so that they can use them in the future for carrying out other illicit activities.
Criminal proceedings against all the four people have been initiated under several articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, including theft and unauthorized interference with the work of computers, automated systems, computer networks or telecommunication networks.
Two Ukrainian DDoS Hackers Arrested
In a separate press release, Police today announced the arrest of two other hackers, 21- and 22-years-old, suspected of performing DDoS attacks against several critical Ukrainian resources, including news sites of the city of Mariupol and several state educational institutions.
According to the authorities, the duo developed two DDoS hacking tools which they used to send hundreds of automatic queries to their targeted regional information resources every second, eventually making their service unavailable.
The pair is currently facing up to six years in prison under article 361 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which includes unlawful interference with the work of computers, automated systems, computer networks or telecommunication networks.
| Cyber_Attack |
Serious Security Flaw : iPhone Bug Allows SMS Spoofing | https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/serious-security-flaw-iphone-bug-allows.html | A rather serious security flaw in the iPhone's SMS messaging system has been discovered and revealed by well-known security researcher and jailbreak extraordinaire 'pod2g'. Security flaw affecting all iPhones that he says could facilitate hackers or thieves to access your personal information.
The researcher claims that the flaw has actually been present in Apple's iPhone software ever since the first iPhone was launched in 2007, but has failed to have been picked up on by anybody, including Apple it seems.
Researcher revealed an SMS spoofing flaw that affects every version of Apple's mobile OS. Using the flaw, hackers could spoof their identities via text and send messages asking for private information (by pretending to be from a users' bank, for example), or direct users to phishing sites.
Users would be under the impression they were replying to the sender displayed on the screen of their iPhone, when in fact the text would be routed through to a different number without their knowledge.
pod2g highlights several ways in which malicious parties could take advantage of this flaw, including phishing attempts linking users to sites collecting personal information or spoofing messages for the purposes of creating false evidence or gaining a recipient's trust to enable further nefarious action.
"…In the text payload, a section called UDH (User Data Header) is optional but defines a lot of advanced features not all mobiles are compatible with. One of these options enables the user to change the reply address of the text. If the destination mobile is compatible with it, and if the receiver tries to answer the text, he will not respond to the original number, but to the specified one."
In many cases the malicious party would need to know the name and number of a trusted contact of the recipient in order for their efforts to be effective, but the phishing example shows how malicious parties could cast broad nets hoping to snare users by pretending to be a common bank or other institution.
In the meantime be prepared to update your iOS version as new options become available, as exploits are discovered Apple typically works quickly to fix those issue whenever possible.
| Vulnerability |
Beware — Someone is dropping Malware-infected USB Sticks into People's Letterbox | https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/usb-malware.html | Hey! Wait! Wait! Wait!
Don't plug in that USB stick into your laptop. It could infect your computer with malware and viruses.
Australia's Victoria Police Force has issued a warning regarding unmarked USB flash drives containing harmful malware being dropped inside random people's letterboxes in the Melbourne suburb of Pakenham.
It seems to one of the latest tactics of cyber criminals to target people by dropping malware-laden USB sticks into their mailboxes, in the hope unsuspecting users will plug the infected devices into their personal or home computers.
The warning, published on the official website of the Victoria Police, one of Australia's state police departments, reads:
"Members of the public are allegedly finding unmarked USB drives in their letterboxes.
Upon inserting the USB drives into their computers victims have experienced fraudulent media streaming service offers, as well as other serious issues [malware].
The USB drives are believed to be extremely harmful and members of the public are urged to avoid plugging them into their computers or other devices."
The warning comes after a recent flood of reports from residents in the suburb of Pakenham who found compromised unmarked drives in their mailboxes and inserted them into their computers.
Although the police did not provide any further detail on the type of malware on the drives or whether the victims were served ransomware demands on running the malicious code on the drives, this is no surprise to us that some people plugged in the drives into their PCs.
Cyber Criminals are Leveraging Human Psychology
A study conducted by a group of researchers from the University of Illinois, the University of Michigan and Google revealed that nearly half of people would not only plug a USB drive they've found on the ground into their PCs, but would also open files and click on unfamiliar links.
The worst part is that people don't make this blunder unknowingly because it has long been known that USB drives can carry and transfer destructive malware and viruses to your computers, perhaps the most infamous example of it was the Stuxnet worm.
The Stuxnet sabotage malware was allegedly designed by the U.S. and Israel to disrupt Iran's nuclear facility and destroyed its uranium enrichment centrifuges in 2010. The infection is believed to have been carried through an infected USB stick.
Keeping this human psychology in mind, just last month a Hong Kong-based company started selling a USB stick, dubbed USB Kill v2, that can fry any computer it's plugged into.
So, next time when you find any USB drive or receive it in the post, show more caution and make sure you don't plug it into your laptop or computer.
| Malware |
Call for Articles : THN Magazine June 2012, Malware Edition | https://thehackernews.com/2012/05/call-for-articles-thn-magazine-june.html | Call for Articles : THN Magazine June 2012, Malware Edition
The Hacker News is calling for our June Magazine on the issue related to MALWARE. We'd like to see an analysis of the history of these most worrying viruses and the contemporary usage in cyber espionage and cyber warfare.
It would be interesting to analyze the impact of the malware diffusion in the private sector and in government agencies, emphasizing the effectiveness of the cyber threat.
Other topics to study are cyber crime activities that involve malware as method of monetization, with particular references to principal frauds schemes.
What is the awareness level on hazards of the malware in common people and how the theat could harm new scenarios like mobiles and Cloud.
What are the main countermeasures to mitigate virus diffusion?
Thank you for your thoughtful consideration and we are looking forward to your work on this very important topic! Email us at [email protected]
Download all THN Magazines Free from official Website : https://magazine.thehackernews.com/
| Malware |
Most advanced and dangerous malware for Apple products - why you should be concerned ! | https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/most-advanced-and-dangerous-malware-for.html | Most advanced and dangerous malware for Apple products - Why you should be concerned !
Indian security researcher from MalCon has created an advanced and dangerous malware for Apple products which can not only compromize your privacy but also steal important data and let hackers control your device by simple text messages.
If you are using any Apple product such as iPhone, iPad or iPod, then you shuuld be concerned. Indian security researcher from MalCon, Atul Alex has created an advanced malware for the Apple products which can not only intercept calls of users, steal data, but also provide a reverse VNC to see remotely all the actions of the victim.
The malware can be deployed remotely over the web and is supposed to work on the latest iOS 5. Atul Alex, Technical director of MalCon said "Apple products are extremely secure by design. The malware works on jailbroken devices - something which over 90% of users have. If your device is not jailbroken, you have nothing to worry about!".
However, over 90% of users normally jailbreak their devices. iOS jailbreaking, or simply jailbreaking, is the process of removing the limitations imposed by Apple on devices running the iOS operating system through use of custom kernels. Such devices include the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and 2nd Gen Apple TV. Jailbreaking allows users to gain root access to the operating system, allowing iOS users to download additional applications, extensions, and themes that are unavailable through the official Apple App Store. A jailbroken iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad running iOS can still use the App Store, iTunes, and other normal functions, such as making telephone calls.
The malware malware boasts of the following features:
• Control devices by SMS
• Invisible Malware
• VNC Server to view remote screen
• Record and listen to all calls remotely
• Upload / Download user Data
• Access all mails and texts
The Malware will be demonstrated next month at the upcoming International Malware Conference, MalCon in Mumbai, India. The researcher Atul Alex has previously coded and demonstated a custom malicious firmware for Symbian last year.
| Vulnerability |
Microsoft Releases Patches For A Critical 'Wormable Flaw' and 78 Other Issues | https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/microsoft-security-updates.html | It's Patch Tuesday—the day when Microsoft releases monthly security updates for its software.
Microsoft has software updates to address a total of 79 CVE-listed vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and other products, including a critical wormable flaw that can propagate malware from computer to computer without requiring users' interaction.
Out of 79 vulnerabilities, 18 issues have been rated as critical and rest Important in severity. Two of the vulnerabilities addressed this month by the tech giant are listed as publicly known, of which one is listed as under active attack at the time of release.
May 2019 security updates address flaws in Windows OS, Internet Explorer, Edge, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Office Services and Web Apps, ChakraCore, .NET Framework, and ASP.NET, Skype for Android, Azure DevOps Server, and the NuGet Package Manager.
Critical Wormable RDP Vulnerability
The wormable vulnerability (CVE-2019-0708) resides in Remote Desktop Services – formerly known as Terminal Services – that could be exploited remotely by sending specially crafted requests over RDP protocol to a targeted system.
The vulnerability could be exploited to spread wormable malware in a similar way as the WannaCry malware spread across the globe in 2017.
"This vulnerability is pre-authentication and requires no user interaction. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could execute arbitrary code on the target system," Microsoft said in an advisory detailing the Wormable vulnerability.
"While we have observed no exploitation of this vulnerability, it is highly likely that malicious actors will write an exploit for this vulnerability and incorporate it into their malware."
Surprisingly, besides releasing patches for supported systems, including Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008, Microsoft has also separately released fixes for out-of-support versions of Windows including Windows 2003 and Windows XP to address this critical issue.
As a workaround, Microsoft has advised Windows Server users to block TCP port 3389 and enable Network Level Authentication to prevent any unauthenticated attacker from exploiting this Wormable flaw.
Other Critical and Important Vulnerabilities
Another severe flaw is an important Elevation of Privilege vulnerability (CVE-2019-0863) in Windows that exists in the way Windows Error Reporting (WER) handles files. The flaw is listed as publicly known and is already being actively exploited in limited attacks against specific targets.
Successful exploitation of the flaw could allow a low-privileged remote attacker to run arbitrary code in kernel mode with administrator privileges, eventually letting them install programs, view, change, or delete data, or create new accounts with administrator privileges.
Another publicly disclosed vulnerability affects Skype for Android app. The vulnerability (CVE-2019-0932) could allow an attacker to listen to the conversation of Skype users without their knowledge.
To successfully exploit this vulnerability, all an attacker needs is to call an Android phone with Skype for Android installed that's also paired with a Bluetooth device.
All critical vulnerabilities listed this month primarily impact various versions of Windows 10 operating system and Server editions and mostly reside in Chakra Scripting Engine, with some also reside in Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI), Internet Explorer, Edge, Word, Remote Desktop Services, and Windows DHCP Server.
Many important-rated vulnerabilities also lead to remote code execution attacks, while others allow elevation of privilege, information disclosure, security bypass, spoofing tampering, and denial of service attacks.
Users and system administrators are highly recommended to apply the latest security patches as soon as possible to keep cybercriminals and hackers away from taking control of their computers.
For installing the latest security updates, you can head on to Settings → Update & Security → Windows Update → Check for updates on your computer, or you can install the updates manually.
Adobe also rolled out security updates today to fix 87 security vulnerabilities in several of its products. Users of the affected Adobe software for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Chrome OS are advised to update their software packages to the latest versions.
| Vulnerability |
'Regin' - 'State-Sponsored' Spying Tool Targeted Govts, Infrastructures for Years | https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/regin-state-sponsored-spying-tool.html | Researchers have uncovered a highly advanced, sophisticated piece of malware they believe was used to spy on a wide-range of international targets including governments, infrastructure operators and other high-profile individuals since at least 2008.
The nasty malware, dubbed "Regin", is said to be more sophisticated than both Stuxnet and Duqu, according to the researchers at antivirus software maker Symantec Corp.
DEVELOPED BY NATION STATE
The research showed that the Regin malware is believe to be developed by a wealthy "nation state" and is a primary cyber espionage tool of a nation state because of the financial clout needed to produce code of this complexity with several stealth features to avoid detection. But, the antivirus software maker didn't identify which country was behind it.
"It is likely that its development took months, if not years, to complete and its authors have gone to great lengths to cover its tracks. Its capabilities and the level of resources behind Regin indicate that it is one of the main cyber espionage tools used by a nation state," said Symantec Security Response team.
"The security firm did not name a nation as the source of Regin, but is willing to say most of its victims were from Russia and Saudi Arabia and were targeted between 2008 and 2011 with a since decommissioned version of the malware that re-surfaced after 2013."
Regin uses a modular approach allowing it to load features that exactly fit the target, enabling a customized spying. The malware's design makes it highly suited for persistent, long-term mass surveillance operations against targets, the company said.
The nasty malware's main targets include Internet service providers and telecommunications companies, where it appears the complex software is used to monitor calls and communications routed through the companies' infrastructure. Other targets include organisations in hospitality, energy, airline, health sectors and research.
HIGHLY CUSTOMIZABLE FIVE STAGE STRUCTURE
Regin's highly customizable nature allows large-scale remote access Trojan capabilities, including password and data theft, hijacking the mouse's point-and-click functions, and capturing screenshots from infected computers. Other infections were identified monitoring network traffic and analyzing email from Exchange databases.
"Customisable with an extensive range of capabilities depending on the target, it provides its controllers with a powerful framework for mass surveillance and has been used in spying operations against government organisations, infrastructure operators, businesses, researchers, and private individuals," Symantec said.
In order to remain stealthy, Regin is organized into five layers, each "hidden and encrypted, with the exception of the first stage." It's a multi-stage attack and each stage reveals the overall attack. Executing the first stage starts a domino chain in which the second stage is decrypted and executed, and that in turn decrypts the third stage, and so on.
NASTY MODULES
The whole picture of the malware only emerges when you have acquire all five stages because each individual stage provides little information on the complete package. Regin contains dozens of payloads, including code for capturing screenshots, seizing control of an infected computer's mouse, stealing passwords, monitoring network traffic, and recovering deleted files.
Other modules appear to be tailored to specific targets. Specialist modules were found monitoring the traffic of Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) server, parsing mail from Exchange databases, and collecting administration traffic for mobile base station controllers.
| Malware |
Yahoo Disables Email Auto-Forwarding; Making It Harder for Users to Move On | https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/yahoo-email-auto-forwarding.html | Yahoo! has disabled automatic email forwarding -- a feature that lets its users forward a copy of incoming emails from one account to another.
The company has faced lots of bad news regarding its email service in past few weeks. Last month, the company admitted a massive 2014 data breach that exposed account details of over 500 Million Yahoo users.
If this wasn't enough for users to quit the service, another shocking revelation came last week that the company scanned the emails of hundreds of millions of its users at the request of a U.S. intelligence service last year.
That's enough for making a loyal Yahoo Mail user to switch for other rival alternatives, like Google Gmail, or Microsoft's Outlook.
Yahoo Mail Disables Auto-Forwarding; Making It Hard to Leave
But as Yahoo Mail users are trying to leave the email service, the company is making it more difficult for them to transition to another email service.
That's because since the beginning of October, the company has disabled Yahoo Mail's automatic email forwarding feature that would allow users to automatically redirect incoming emails from their Yahoo account to another account, reported by the Associated Press.
All of a sudden it's under development? Here's what a post on the company's help page reads about the feature's status:
"This feature is under development. While we work to improve it, we've temporarily disabled the ability to turn on Mail Forwarding for new forwarding addresses. If you've already enabled Mail Forwarding in the past, your email will continue to forward to the address you previously configured."
In other words, only users who already had the feature turned ON in the past are out of this trouble, but users who are trying to turn ON automatic email forwarding now have no option.
Yahoo has shared the following statement about the recent move:
"We're working to get auto-forward back up and running as soon as possible because we know how useful it can be to our users. The feature was temporary disabled as part of previously planned maintenance to improve its functionality between a user's various accounts. Users can expect an update to the auto-forward functionality soon. In the meantime, we continue to support multiple account management."
Yahoo is trying to save its Verizon Acquisition Deal
The move to turn off the email forwarding option could be an attempt to keep its customers' accounts active because any damage to the company at this time is crucial when Yahoo seeks to sell itself to Verizon.
The Yahoo acquisition deal has not yet closed, and Verizon Communications has reportedly asked for a $1 Billion discount off of Yahoo's $4.83 Billion sales price.
As a workaround, you could switch on your vacation responder instead to automatically reply to emails with a note about your new email address.
Delete Your Yahoo Account Before It's Too Late
You can also forego the forwarding process and simply delete your Yahoo Mail account entirely, until and unless Yahoo disables that option, too.
As the Reg media reports that British Telecoms customers, whose email had been outsourced to Yahoo, have not been able to set up automatic email forwarding or even access the option to delete their accounts.
"Sorry, the delete feature is currently unavailable. This feature will become available by the end of September," the error message reads.
So, hurry up before it gets too late.
| Data_Breaches |
Chinese Hackers Exploited Latest SolarWinds 0-Day in Targeted Attacks | https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/chinese-hackers-exploit-latest.html | Microsoft on Tuesday disclosed that the latest string of attacks targeting SolarWinds Serv-U managed file transfer service with a now-patched remote code execution (RCE) exploit is the handiwork of a Chinese threat actor dubbed "DEV-0322."
The revelation comes days after the Texas-based IT monitoring software maker issued fixes for the flaw that could enable adversaries to remotely run arbitrary code with privileges, allowing them to perform actions like install and run malicious payloads or view and alter sensitive data.
Tracked as CVE-2021-35211, the RCE flaw resides in Serv-U's implementation of the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol. While it was previously revealed that the attacks were limited in scope, SolarWinds said it's "unaware of the identity of the potentially affected customers."
Attributing the intrusions with high confidence to DEV-0322 (short for "Development Group 0322") based on observed victimology, tactics, and procedures, Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) said the adversary is known for targeting entities in the U.S. Defense Industrial Base Sector and software companies.
"This activity group is based in China and has been observed using commercial VPN solutions and compromised consumer routers in their attacker infrastructure," according to MSTIC, which discovered the zero-day after it detected as many as six anomalous malicious processes being spawned from the main Serv-U process, suggesting a compromise.
The development also marks the second time a China-based hacking group has exploited vulnerabilities in SolarWinds software as a fertile field for targeted attacks against corporate networks.
Back in December 2020, Microsoft disclosed that a separate espionage group may have been taking advantage of the IT infrastructure provider's Orion software to drop a persistent backdoor called Supernova on infected systems. The intrusions have since been attributed to a China-linked threat actor called Spiral.
Additional indicators of compromise associated with the attack can be accessed from SolarWinds' revised advisory here.
Update: This article has been updated to reflect that attackers didn't exploit the SolarWinds flaw to target defense and software companies. As of now, no information has been provided on who was attacked during this zero-day attack.
| Malware |
Samba remote code execution vulnerability, Patch Released ! | https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/samba-remote-code-execution.html | Samba remote code execution vulnerability, Patch Released !
Samba is an award-winning free software file, print and authentication server suite for Windows clients. The project was begun by Australian Andrew Tridgell.
There is a serious remotely exploitable vulnerability in the Samba open-source software that could enable an attacker to gain root privileges without any authentication. The bug is in all versions of Samba from 3.0.x to 3.6.3, but has been fixed in Samba 3.6.4, which is the current stable release.
The vulnerability was discovered by security researcher Brian Gorenc and an unnamed colleague, working for the Zero Day Initiative. The flaw, which is located in the code generator for Samba's remote procedure call (RPC) interface, makes it possible for clients on the network to force the Samba server to execute arbitrary code.
Three new security releases (Samba 3.4.16, Samba 3.5.14, Samba 3.6.4) for currently supported versions have been issued over at samba.org/samba/security. Patches against older Samba versions are available at samba.org/samba/patches.
Most at risk here is the compromise of Linux-embedded systems that use Samba, and many of these device vendors are notorious for not regularly patching these systems. This makes this vulnerability an attractive target for exploit writers, both for integration in commercial and free penetration testing tools like Metasploit, as well as for use in malicious attacks.
| Vulnerability |
Oops! Microsoft Accidentally Leaks Backdoor Keys to Bypass UEFI Secure Boot | https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/uefi-secure-boot-hack.html | It's True — There is no such backdoor that only its creator can access.
Microsoft has accidentally leaked the Secret keys that allow hackers to unlock devices protected by UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) Secure Boot feature.
What's even worse?
It will be impossible for Microsoft to undo its leak.
Secure Boot is a security feature that protects your device from certain types of malware, such as a rootkit, which can hijack your system bootloader, as well as, Secure Boot restricts you from running any non-Microsoft operating system on your device.
In other words, when Secure Boot is enabled, you will only be able to boot Microsoft approved (cryptographically signature checking) operating systems.
However, the Golden Keys disclosed by two security researchers, using alias MY123 and Slipstream, can be used to install non-Windows operating systems, say GNU/Linux or Android, on the devices protected by Secure Boot.
Moreover, according to the blog post published by researchers, it is impossible for Microsoft to fully revoke the leaked keys, potentially giving law enforcement (such as FBI and NSA) special backdoor that can be used to unlock Windows-powered devices in criminal cases.
The issue actually resides in the Secure Boot policy loading system, where a specially signed policy loads early and disables the operating system signature checks, the reg reports.
This specific Secure Boot policy was created and signed by Microsoft for developers, testers, and programmers for debugging purposes.
"During the development of Windows 10 v1607 'Redstone,' MS added a new type of secure boot policy. Namely, "supplemental" policies that are located in the EFIESP partition…" researcher said.
"...a backdoor, which MS put into secure boot because they decided to not let the user turn it off in certain devices, allows for secure boot to be disabled everywhere!"
Yesterday, Microsoft released August Patch Tuesday that includes a security patch for designing flaw in Secure Boot for the second time in two months, but unfortunately, the patch is not complete.
| Malware |
Kaseya Rules Out Supply-Chain Attack; Says VSA 0-Day Hit Its Customers Directly | https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/kaseya-rules-out-supply-chain-attack.html | U.S. technology firm Kaseya, which is firefighting the largest ever supply-chain ransomware strike on its VSA on-premises product, ruled out the possibility that its codebase was unauthorizedly tampered with to distribute malware.
While initial reports raised speculations that REvil, the ransomware gang behind the attack, might have gained access to Kaseya's backend infrastructure and abused it to deploy a malicious update to VSA servers running on client premises, in a modus operandi similar to that of the devastating SolarWinds hack, it has since emerged that a never-before-seen security vulnerability (CVE-2021-30116) in the software was leveraged to push ransomware to Kaseya's customers.
"The attackers were able to exploit zero-day vulnerabilities in the VSA product to bypass authentication and run arbitrary command execution," the Miami-headquartered company noted in the incident analysis. "This allowed the attackers to leverage the standard VSA product functionality to deploy ransomware to endpoints. There is no evidence that Kaseya's VSA codebase has been maliciously modified."
In other words, while successful zero-day exploitation on Kaseya VSA software by itself isn't a supply-chain attack, taking advantage of the exploit to compromise managed service providers (MSPs) and breach their customers would constitute as one.
It's, however, unclear as to how the hackers learned of the vulnerabilities. The details of those flaws have not yet been publicly released, although Huntress Labs revealed that "Cybercriminals have exploited an arbitrary file upload and code injection vulnerability and have high confidence an authentication bypass was used to gain access into these servers."
Image Source: Cybereason
About 60 MSPs and 1,500 downstream businesses around the world have been paralyzed by the ransomware attack, according to the company's CEO Fred Voccola, most of which have been small concerns, like dental practices, architecture firms, plastic surgery centers, and libraries.
Hackers associated with the Russia-linked REvil ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) group initially demanded $70 million in Bitcoins to release a decryptor tool for restoring all the affected businesses' data, although they have swiftly lowered the asking price to $50 million, suggesting a willingness to negotiate their demands in return for a lesser amount.
"REvil ransomware has been advertised on underground forums for three years and it is one of the most prolific RaaS operations," Kaspersky researchers said Monday, adding "the gang earned over $100 million from its operations in 2020."
The attack chain worked by first deploying a malicious dropper via a PowerShell script which was executed through Kaseya's VSA software.
"This script disables Microsoft Defender for Endpoint protection features and then uses the certutil.exe utility to decode a malicious executable (agent.exe) that drops a legitimate Microsoft binary (MsMpEng.exe, an older version of Microsoft Defender) and malicious library (mpsvc.dll), which is the REvil ransomware. This library is then loaded by the legitimate MsMpEng.exe by utilizing the DLL side-loading technique," the researchers added.
The incident has also led the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to offer mitigation guidance, urging businesses to enable multi-factor authentication, limit communication with remote monitoring and management (RMM) capabilities to known IP address pairs, and place administrative interfaces of RMM behind a virtual private network (VPN) or a firewall on a dedicated administrative network.
| Malware |
CVE-2012-3372 : Traffic Interception Vulnerability found in Cyberoam | https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/cve-2012-3372-traffic-interception.html | Traffic Interception Vulnerability found in Cyberoam
The TOR team have discovered a fake certificate in the wild. The certificate, issued by a US company called Cyberoam, was used in an attempt to trick a user in Jordan into believing that her/his connection to the TOR website, was private and secure, though in fact it was being spied upon by a Cyberoam device.
This issue was discovered and analysed by Runa A. Sandvik of the TorProject and Ben Laurie. A certificate handling flaw in Cyberoam's deep packet inspection (DPI) devices allow traffic from a single 'victim' to be intercepted by any DPI device from the vendor, according to the Tor Project.
Cyberoam make a range of DPI devices which are capable of intercepting SSL connections. "While investigating this further, Ben Laurie and I found a security vulnerability affecting all Cyberoam DPI devices. Examination of a certificate chain generated by a Cyberoam DPI device shows that all such devices share the same CA certificate and hence the same private key," Runa A. Sandvik, security researcher at Tor Project, explained.
Because the devices all use the same CA certificate, anyone in the possession of one of these devices can intercept traffic from any user accessing the network through a different Cyberoam device. Since all of the devices also include the same private key, this key can be extracted and imported into other DPI systems as well, enabling that same traffic to be intercepted.
Tor Browser Bundle are not impacted, but other users should check to ensure that the certificate in question is not installed in their web browser. Victims should uninstall the Cyberoam CA certificate from theirbrowsers and decline to complete any connection which gives acertificate warning.
| Vulnerability |
NSA Data Center Experiencing 300 Million Hacking Attempts Per Day | https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/nsa-utah-data-center.html | Utah State computer systems are experiencing a massive cyber attack on up to 300 Million Hacking attempts per day due to National Security Agency's (NSA) data center in the state.
Yes, 300,000,000 hacking attempts in a day!
According to the statistical survey, it is evident that the computer systems in the US State of Utah began to experience the hacking attack a few years back, precisely, soon after the NSA revelations by global surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden.
It is a less-known fact that the NSA has built its new data center near the city of Bluffdale, Utah. However, a couple of years back, when Snowden revealed the presence of the data center, the attacks have constantly been going on.
The PRISM spying program by Big Brothers at NSA might have shifted the attention of hackers for the retaliation against mass-surveillance and flared up this heightened cyber attacks against the spying agency.
According to Utah Commissioner of public safety, Keith Squires, as quoted by KUTV:
"In 2010, my IT director was letting me know that the number of attacks we were averaging a day was between 25,000 to 80,000. We had peaks in the past year or so that were over 300,000,000 a day."
Additionally, advanced weapons systems at Hill Air Force Base and other tech companies in Utah could also be the reason for this fueling cyber attacks.
Trace Route
The Security officers had identified the sudden influx of IP traffic traced into foreign IP ranges and said the incident would be a model of a botnet attack.
The botnet network scans for the technical glitches in the communication pathways to infect the system, as per its Command and Control (C&C) instructions.
In an attempt to minimize the attacking vector, Utah Security Officer had blocked the IP addresses from China, Russia, and Indonesia.
In the majority of cases, hackers are trying to gain a single access by many tactical ploys that could lead them to land into the NSA mainframes.
The Big Brother is Watching you…!
| Cyber_Attack |
Hackers Found Exploiting Oracle WebLogic RCE Flaw to Spread Ransomware | https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/ransomware-oracle-weblogic.html | Taking advantage of newly disclosed and even patched vulnerabilities has become common among cybercriminals, which makes it one of the primary attack vectors for everyday-threats, like crypto-mining, phishing, and ransomware.
As suspected, a recently-disclosed critical vulnerability in the widely used Oracle WebLogic Server has now been spotted actively being exploited to distribute a never-before-seen ransomware variant, which researchers dubbed "Sodinokibi."
Last weekend, The Hacker News learned about a critical deserialization remote code execution vulnerability in Oracle WebLogic Server that could allow attackers to remotely run arbitrary commands on the affected servers just by sending a specially crafted HTTP request—without requiring any authorization.
To address this vulnerability (CVE-2019-2725), which affected all versions of the Oracle WebLogic software and was given a severity score of 9.8 out of 10, Oracle rolled out an out-of-band security update on April 26, just a day after the vulnerability was made public and several in-the-wild attacks were observed.
According to cybersecurity researchers from Cisco Talos' threat research team, an unknown group of hackers has been exploiting this vulnerability since at least April 25 to infect vulnerable servers with a new piece of ransomware malware.
Sodinokibi is a dangerous ransomware variant which has been designed to encrypt files in a user's directory and then delete shadow copy backups from the system in an effort to prevent victims from recovering their data without paying a ransom.
No Interaction Required to Deploy Ransomware
Since attackers are leveraging a remote code execution vulnerability in the WebLogic Server, unlike typical ransomware attacks, deploying the Sodinokibi ransomware requires no user interaction.
"Historically, most varieties of ransomware have required some form of user interaction, such as a user opening an attachment to an email message, clicking on a malicious link, or running a piece of malware on the device," researchers explain in a blog post.
"In this case, the attackers simply leveraged the Oracle WebLogic vulnerability, causing the affected server to download a copy of the ransomware from attacker-controlled IP addresses."
Once downloaded, the Sodinokibi ransomware encrypts the victim's systems and displays a ransom note demanding up to $2,500 in Bitcoin. The amount doubles to $5,000 if the ransom is not paid within a specified number of days—which may vary from two days to six days.
Hackers Are Also Installing GandCrab Ransomware
Researchers also noted that roughly eight hours after deploying Sodinokibi on an infected system, the attackers exploited the same WebLogic Server vulnerability to install another piece of ransomware known as GandCrab (v5.2).
"We find it strange the attackers would choose to distribute additional, different ransomware on the same target," the researchers say. "Sodinokibi being a new flavor of ransomware, perhaps the attackers felt their earlier attempts had been unsuccessful and were still looking to cash in by distributing Gandcrab."
Attackers have been exploiting the Oracle WebLogic Server vulnerability in the wild since at least April 17 to distribute cryptocurrency miners and other types of malware.
WebLogic Server is a popular Java-based multi-tier enterprise application server typically used by businesses to support enterprise apps, which makes it an often target of attackers trying to carry out malicious operations, like running cryptocurrency miners and infecting with ransomware.
Organizations that use Oracle WebLogic Server should make sure to update their installations to the latest version of the software as soon as possible.
| Cyber_Attack |
Built-In Backdoor Found in Popular Chinese Android Smartphones | https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/built-in-backdoor-found-in-popular.html | Chinese smartphone manufacturers have been criticized many times for suspected backdoors in its products, the popular Chinese smartphone brands, Xiaomi and Star N9500 smartphones are the top examples. Now, the China's third-largest mobile and world's sixth-largest phone manufacturer 'Coolpad', has joined the list.
Millions of Android smartphones sold by Chinese smartphone maker Coolpad Group Ltd. may contain an extensive "backdoor" from its manufacturer that is being able to track users, push unwanted pop-up advertisements and install unauthorized apps onto users' phones without their knowledge, alleged a U.S. security firm.
OVER 10 MILLION USERS AT RISK
Researchers from Silicon Valley online security firm Palo Alto Networks discovered the backdoor, dubbed "CoolReaper," pre-installed on two dozens of Coolpad Android handset models, including high-end devices, sold exclusively in China and Taiwan. The backdoor can let attackers completely hijack users' Android device by gaining access to their device information and functions.
The backdoor presents several privacy and security risk, and is believed to impact over 10 million users worldwide. The security firm released a research paper Wednesday detailing its investigation on the backdoor software, called CoolReaper.
FEATURES OF COOLREAPER BACKDOOR
According to Ryan Olson, intelligence director at Palo Alto, CoolReaper backdoor can perform a wide number of unsolicited tasks. The backdoor has ability to:
Download, install and activate any Android application without the user's consent or notification
Connect to a number of command and control (C&C) servers
Clear user data, uninstall existing applications, or disable system applications
Send fake over-the-air (OTA) software updates to devices that install unwanted applications
Send or insert arbitrary SMS or MMS messages into the phone
Dial arbitrary phone numbers
Upload device information, its location, application usage information, calling and SMS history to Coolpad server
Researchers obtained only one of the Coolpad smartphone models sold in the U.S. and did not find CoolReaper on the device. So, they suspected that the CoolReaper backdoor comes pre-installed only on Coolpad handsets sold in China and Taiwan.
The researchers conducted its investigation after reviewing complaints by the users on message boards about suspicious activities noticed on Coolpad devices. The security firm installed multiple copies of the custom ROMs installed on Coolpad devices in China and found that most included CoolReaper.
"CoolReaper is the first malware we have seen that was built and operated by an Android manufacturer," researchers wrote. "The changes Coolpad made to the Android OS to hide the backdoor from users and antivirus programs are unique and should make people think twice about the integrity of their mobile devices."
CHINA BEING CRITICIZED MANY TIMES
This isn't the first time when Chinese phone manufacturer is criticized for its products. Six months ago, a popular and cheap handset device in China, the Star N9500 smartphone came pre-installed with a Trojan that allowed manufacturer to spy onto their users' comprising their personal data and conversations without any restrictions and users' knowledge.
Also, the latest claim against Chinese smartphone manufacturers was the allegation that the popular Chinese smartphone brand, Xiaomi has been suspected of "secretly" stealing users' information from the device without the user's permissions and sending it back to a server in Beijing, despite of turning off the data backup functions.
Palo Alto Networks is the same security firm that discovered "WireLurker" malware that was targeting Mac and iOS users in China, and the main concern to worry about the threat was its ability to attack non-jailbroken iOS devices. The malware appeared as the first malicious software program with the ability to penetrate the iPhone's strict software controls.
| Malware |
Facebook OAuth flaw allows gaining full control over any Facebook account | https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/facebook-oauth-flaw-allows-gaining-full.html | Facebook OAuth is used to communicate between Applications & Facebook users, to grant additional permissions to your favorite apps. To make this possible, users have to 'allow or accept' the application request so that app can access your account information with required permissions.
As a normal Facebook user we always think that it is better than entering your Facebook credentials, we can just allow specific permissions to an app in order to make it work with your account.
Today whitehat Hacker 'Nir Goldshlager' reported 'The Hacker News' that he discovered a very critical vulnerability in Facebook's OAuth system, that allowed him to get full control over any Facebook account easily even without 'allow or accept' options.
For this purpose he hunt the flaw in a very mannered way i.e
Step 1) Understanding the OAuth URL
Step 2) Finding a way to use custom parameters in URL
Step 3) Bypassing OAuth 'Allow' button request at user end
Goldshlager explained everything on his blog via a post, so will also go step by step:
1.) Understanding the OAuth URL
The Facebook OAuth dialog URL is something like shown below:
https://www.facebook.com/dialog/oauth/?app_id=YOUR_APP_ID&next=YOUR_REDIRECT_URL&state=YOUR_STATE_VALUE&scope=COMMA_SEPARATED_LIST_OF_PERMISSION_NAMES
Where app_id is the application ID and next parameter must contains the URL of the respective app domain only. For example app_id=2389801228 belongs to 'Texas Holdem Poker' app, So the 'next' parameter will allow only zynga.com domain (i.e next=https://zynga.com), otherwise Facebook will block that action.
2.) Finding a way to use custom parameters in URL
Goldshlager found that Facebook was allowing him to use facebook's sub domain in next parameter in the URL ie. https://beta.facebook.com/#xxx!/messages/. But '#xxx!' was not working for all browsers. After fuzzing the URL characters, he found that %23~! and %23%09! worked for all browsers.
This finding was enough to redirect user to any file or folder at Facebook domain.
Then he developed a simple Facebook application (i.e touch.facebook.com/apps/testestestte) ,which was just to redirecting users to remote site (i.e. files.nirgoldshlager.com) with access token, where a log file was ready to store all access tokens.
3.) Bypassing OAuth 'Allow' button request at user end
Till now attacker was able to redirect user to a fake app, which was passing victim's access tokens to a 3rd party domain where attacker was logging access tokens. But the main issue was still there i.e without user interaction, app will not work. That means, one have to click 'allow' button as shown below.
So, to bypass this, he discovered that there are many built-in Facebook applications i.e 'Facebook Messenger app' that can access full permissions (read inbox, outbox, manage pages, manage ads,access to private photos, videos, etc.) from the victim's account without user interaction i.e no need to click 'allow' button.
i.e Sample Final URL :
https://www.facebook.com/connect/uiserver.php?app_id=220764691281998&next=https%3A%2F%2Ftouch.facebook.com%2F%23~!%2Fapps%2Ftestestestte%2F&display=page&fbconnect=1&method=permissions.request&response_type=token
This way attacker is now able to grab access tokens (with full permissions) of any Facebook account by just making his victims to visit a modified OAuth URL (without user interaction). This access_token will be never expired, It will expired only after the victim change his Facebook password
Video Demonstration:
As a responsible bug hunter, Nir Goldshlager reported this flaw to Facebook security team few months back and now it is fixed. He was rewarded many times in bug bounty program. In January he also reported a password reset vulnerability in Facebook Employees Secure Files Transfer service
| Vulnerability |
Bogus Facebook apps spreading Android malware | https://thehackernews.com/2012/05/bogus-facebook-apps-spreading-android.html | Bogus Facebook apps spreading Android malware
Third-party Android markets have traditionally been the main source of infection since the Android boom, as they are less strict than the genuine Play when it comes to bouncing malware.
Today Gmanetwork reports that, Users of mobile devices running Google's Android OS were warned over the weekend against a new fake app of the social networking giant that may lead to potential Android malware. These duplicated applications have the same behavior as their original counterparts (in terms of functionality), but they perform a http 302 redirect to another link, that's not Facebook-related, when they detect mobile traffic.
What's most concerning is that many of the fake app-based malwares in circulation have purported to be legitimate copies of some of the most popular titles around. No sooner were Android users on red alert for a dodgy Angry Birds Space app, were they informed of a phony Instagram app wreaking havoc through some of the unverified mediums.
The fake apps claim to scan a user's Facebook contacts and list all the potential girlfriends or boyfriends among the user's friends. BitDefender said that while cross-site scripting is nothing new, this is one of the few times when a direct correlation between Facebook and promoting Android apps via redirecting mobile traffic has been reported.
This could be the beginning of paid promotions through Facebook, where Android app developers can actually subscribe to have their apps promoted via Facebook by means of illegitimate services.
| Malware |
Hacker arrested by Taiwan Investigation Bureau | https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/hacker-arrested-by-taiwan-investigation.html | A suspect hacker 'Shih' was arrested by Taiwan Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) last week for hacking into a popular local classic music website. The police raided the apartment of the suspect and seized his computer.
The investigation was launched by the bureau after it received a report from the website's operator who said its site was hacked in March.
During initial investigations, Shih confessed to the police that he hacked into the website's customer database and made unauthorized changes to customer data. Shih also confessed that he has used a hacking technique called SQL injection to attack the website's database.
SQL injection is a technique used to take advantage of non-validated input vulnerabilities to pass SQL commands through a Web application for execution by a backend database. The result is that the attacker can execute arbitrary SQL queries and/or commands on the backend database server through the Web application.
The Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) urged local website operators to stay on alert regarding similar hacking attempts.
| Vulnerability |
AirDrop Bug in Apple iOS and OSX allows Hackers to Install Malware Silently | https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/hack-ios-airdrop.html | With the launch of iOS 9, Apple gave us an ultimate reason to upgrade our Apple devices to its new operating system.
The latest iOS 9 includes a security update for a nasty bug that could be exploited to take full control of your iPhone or Macs, forcing most of the Apple users to download the latest update.
Australian security researcher Mark Dowd has disclosed a serious vulnerability in AirDrop, Apple's over-the-air file sharing service built into iOS and Mac OS X.
How the Attack Works?
The vulnerability allows anyone within the range of an AirDrop user to silently install a malicious app on a target Apple device by sending an AirDrop file which involves rebooting of the target device.
An attacker can exploit this critical bug even if the victim rejects the incoming file sent over AirDrop.
After rebooting takes place, the malicious app gains access to Springboard, Apple's software to manage iOS home screen, allowing the app to fool the victim's iPhone into believing the malicious app has the same rights as a normal app.
These rights include access to:
Contacts
Camera
Location
Messages
and many more…
…that could allow a more illustrious hacker to break into other sensitive areas of the Apple's operating system, causing severe damage to the victim's device.
"AirDrop bug can be used to target people wirelessly in close proximity. Also useful for lock-screen bypass," Dowd, founder and director of Azimuth Security, tweeted.
Video Demonstration
Dowd also provided a video demonstration (you can watch below) showing the real time attack on his iPhone running iOS 8.4.1.
The vulnerability affects any iOS versions supporting AirDrop from iOS 7 onwards, as well as Mac OS X versions from Yosemite onwards.
Update to iOS 9 and Mac OS X EI Capitan
Apple has responded to the vulnerability by adding a sandbox to AirDrop in iOS 9 that would prevent anyone from writing files to arbitrary locations on the device via AirDrop service.
However, it isn't clear when Apple will provide a complete patch to fix the issue.
So the only way to prevent this attack, for now, is by upgrading your devices to iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 El Capitan, which won't roll out before September 16 and 30 respectively.
| Malware |
Iranian engineer hijack U.S. drone by GPS hack [Video Explanation] | https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/iranian-engineer-hijack-us-drone-by-gps.html | An Iranian engineer working on the captured US drone has said that Iran exploited a weakness in the craft's navigation system to hijack it. The aircraft was downed through a relatively unsophisticated cyber-attack that tricked its global positioning systems (GPS).
The technique, known as "GPS spoofing" has been around for several years, and the Iranians began studying it in 2007, the engineer reportedly said. The U.S. Department of Energy notes that GPS is widely used, but insecure, although few users have taken note. GPS signals for the U.S. military are similarly insecure, and drones often rely on signals from multiple satellites. It's possible to spoof unencrypted civilian GPS systems. But military GPS receivers, such as the one likely installed on the missing drone, use the encrypted P(Y)-code to communicate with satellites.
"With spoofing, an adversary provides fake GPS signals. This convinces the GPS receiver that it is located in the wrong place and/or time," the vulnerability assessment team at Argonne National Laboratory explained. "Remarkably, spoofing can be accomplished without having much knowledge about electronics, computers, or GPS itself."
Other drone vulnerabilities have also highlighted security fears. In October, Danger Room broke the news that the cockpits at the Air Force's drone fleet based out of Creech Air Force Base in Nevada were infected with a virus. Malware had apparently made its way onto computers because someone had been using one to play the Mafia Wars game a stunning security faux pas.
The RQ-170 Sentinel has been seen on display by Iran's gloating military after it went missing along the Afghan-Iran border earlier this month - but a former Pentagon official said it seems to be a fake. However the engineer working on the CIA drone's system told the Christian Science Monitor that his country fooled the aircraft into touching down in Iran - instead of its programmed destination.The engineer claimed the electronic attack made it 'land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to crack the remote-control signals and communications' from the U.S. control centre.
The drone was used for covert surveillance such as the operation to spy on the Pakistan compound of Osama Bin Laden before he was killed in a U.S. raid in May.Iranian officials have said the drone came down over eastern Iran, hundreds of miles from the cluster of nuclear sites in the central and north-west of the country.They believe they can 'mass produce' the captured drone by 'reverse engineering' the aircraft.
| Malware |
BlackHole Exploit Kit 2.0 released with more latest Exploits | https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/blackhole-exploit-kit-20-released-with.html | According to release announcement on Pastebin by unknown developers in a Russian-language BlackHole Exploit Kit 2.0 released with more latest Exploits. BlackHole is one of the most dominant exploit toolkits currently available in the underground market. It enables attackers to exploit security holes in order to install malicious software on victim's systems.
The new variant doesn't rely on plugindetect to determine the Java version that's installed, thus speeding up the malware download process. Old exploits that were causing browsers to crash and "scary visual effects" have been removed.
The exploit kit is offered both as a "licensed" software product for the intrepid malware server operator and as malware-as-a-service by the author off his own server.
Some interesting claims by developer about new version:
prevent direct download of executable payloads
only load exploit contents when client is considered vulnerable
drop use of PluginDetect library (performance justification)
remove some old exploits (leaving Java atomic & byte, PDF LibTIFF, MDAC)
change from predictable url structure (filenames and querystring parameter names)
update machine stats to include Windows 8 and mobile devices
better breakdown of plug-in version information
improved checking of referrer
block TOR traffic
Finally, a number of "private tricks" have been implemented, which the author prefers to keep a secret because he fears that competitors and antivirus companies are "sneaking around." The developer offers a one-day rental of capacity on his server for as little as $50, up to a month-long lease for $500 (with larger fees for traffic over 70,000 web hits per day).
For those who want to run their own BlackHole server, licenses start at $700 for a 3-month license (which includes software support) and range up to $1,500 for a full year, plus $200 for the multidomain version. For those who want to cover their tracks, a site clean-up package comes priced at $300.
| Vulnerability |
Medtronic's Implantable Defibrillators Vulnerable to Life-Threatening Hacks | https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/hacking-implantable-defibrillators.html | The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Thursday issued an advisory warning people of severe vulnerabilities in over a dozen heart defibrillators that could allow attackers to fully hijack them remotely, potentially putting lives of millions of patients at risk.
Cardioverter Defibrillator is a small surgically implanted device (in patients' chests) that gives a patient's heart an electric shock (often called a countershock) to re-establish a normal heartbeat.
While the device has been designed to prevent sudden death, several implanted cardiac defibrillators made by one of the world's largest medical device companies Medtronic have been found vulnerable to two serious vulnerabilities.
Discovered by researchers from security firm Clever Security, the vulnerabilities could allow threat actors with knowledge of medical devices to intercept and potentially impact the functionality of these life-saving devices.
"Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities may allow an attacker with adjacent short-range access to one of the affected products to interfere with, generate, modify, or intercept the radio frequency (RF) communication of the Medtronic proprietary Conexus telemetry system, potentially impacting product functionality and/or allowing access to transmitted sensitive data," warns the advisory released by DHS.
The vulnerabilities reside in the Conexus Radio Frequency Telemetry Protocol—a wireless communication system used by some of Medtronic defibrillators and their control units to wirelessly connect to implanted devices over the air using radio-waves.
Flaw 1: Lack of Authentication in Medtronic's Implantable Defibrillators
According to an advisory [PDF] published by Medtronic, these flaws affect more than 20 products, 16 of which are implantable defibrillators and rest are the defibrillators' bedside monitors and programmers.
The more critical flaw of the two is CVE-2019-6538 which occurs because the Conexus telemetry protocol does not include any checks for data tampering, nor performs any form of authentication or authorization.
The successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an attacker within the radio range of the affected device and right radio gear to intercept, spoof, or modify data transmitting between the device and its controller, which could potentially harm or perhaps even kill the patient.
"This communication protocol provides the ability to read and write memory values to affected implanted cardiac devices; therefore, an attacker could exploit this communication protocol to change memory in the implanted cardiac device," the DHS says.
Flaw 2: Lack of Encryption in Medtronic's Implantable Defibrillators
The Conexus telemetry protocol also provides no encryption to secure the telemetry communications, making it possible for attackers within the range to eavesdrop on the communication. This issue has been assigned CVE-2019-6540.
However, Medtronic said the vulnerabilities would be hard to take advantage of and harm patients since it requires the following conditions to be met:
An unauthorized individual would need to be in close proximity of up to 6 meters (20 feet) to the targeted device or clinic programmer.
Conexus telemetry must be activated by a healthcare professional who is in the same room as the patient.
Outside of the hospital activation times of devices are limited, which vary patient to patient and are difficult to be predicted by an unauthorized user.
The medical technology giant also assures its users that "neither a cyberattack nor patient harm has been observed or associated with these vulnerabilities" to this date.
Medtronic also noted that its line of implanted pacemakers, including those with Bluetooth wireless functionality, as well as its CareLink Express monitors and CareLink Encore programmers (Model 29901) used by some hospitals and clinics are not vulnerable to either of these flaws.
Medtronic has already applied additional controls for monitoring and responding to the abuse of the Conexus protocol by the affected implanted cardiac devices and is working on a fix to address the reported vulnerabilities.
The security fix will soon become available, and in the meantime, Medtronic urged "patients and physicians continue to use these devices as prescribed and intended."
| Vulnerability |
Inj3ct0r Team found XSS Vulnerability on MSN website | https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/inj3ct0r-team-found-xss-vulnerability.html | A particular class of attacks commonly referred to as "code insertion" and often "Cross-Site Scripting" has become increasingly popular. Yesterday we reported about Cross site scripting bug Paypal and Apple.
Hacker from Inj3ct0r Team reported a XSS Cross site scripting Vulnerability on MSN.com website. Vulnerability exist of a subdomain of MSN at https://news.de.msn.com/. Details posted in an advisory. Cross site scripting occurs when a web application gathers malicious data from a user.
Hackers said that, "The goal is to close the capabilities gap between the cyber-criminals and white hats, by enabling defenders to perform more comprehensive testing of their defenses."
According to report, this XSS is working perfectly with Internet Explorer and Opera web browser, Proof of Concept URL's are posted in advisory and Image as shown.
| Vulnerability |
Simple Bug allows Hackers to Read all your Private Facebook Messenger Chats | https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/hack-facebook-messenger-chats.html | A security researcher has discovered a critical vulnerability in Facebook Messenger that could allow an attacker to read all your private conversation, affecting the privacy of around 1 Billion Messenger users.
Ysrael Gurt, the security researcher at BugSec and Cynet, reported a cross-origin bypass-attack against Facebook Messenger which allows an attacker to access your private messages, photos as well as attachments sent on the Facebook chat.
To exploit this vulnerability, all an attacker need is to trick a victim into visiting a malicious website; that's all.
Once clicked, all private conversations by the victim, whether from a Facebook's mobile app or a web browser, would be accessible to the attacker, because the flaw affected both the web chat as well as the mobile application.
Dubbed "Originull," the vulnerability actually lies in the fact that Facebook chats are managed from a server located at {number}-edge-chat.facebook.com, which is separate from Facebook's actual domain (www.facebook.com).
"Communication between the JavaScript and the server is done by XML HTTP Request (XHR). In order to access the data that arrives from 5-edge-chat.facebook.com in JavaScript, Facebook must add the "Access-Control-Allow-Origin" header with the caller's origin, and the "Access-Control-Allow-Credentials" header with "true" value, so that the data is accessible even when the cookies are sent," Gurt explained.
The root of this issue was misconfigured cross-origin header implementation on Facebook's chat server domain, which allowed an attacker to bypass origin checks and access Facebook messages from an external website.
Gurt has also released a proof-of-concept video demonstration of the Originull vulnerability, which shows the cross-origin bypass-attack in action.
However, Secret Conversations, Facebook Messenger's end-to-end encrypted chat feature was not affected by this bug, as it can be initiated or launched only using its mobile app.
"This security flaw meant that the messages of 1-billion active monthly Messenger users were vulnerable to attackers," said Stas Volfus, Chief Technology Officer of BugSec.
"This was an extremely serious issue, not only due to the high number of affected users, but also because even if the victim sent their messages using another computer or mobile, they were still completely vulnerable."
The researcher disclosed the severe vulnerability to Facebook through its Bug Bounty program. The Facebook security team acknowledged the issue and patched the vulnerable component.
You can read the full details of the flaw on Cynet's blog post published on Tuesday.
| Vulnerability |
WikiLeaks Reveals 'AfterMidnight' & 'Assassin' CIA Windows Malware Frameworks | https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/windows-malware-framework.html | When the world was dealing with the threat of the self-spreading WannaCry ransomware, WikiLeaks released a new batch of CIA Vault 7 leaks, detailing two apparent CIA malware frameworks for the Microsoft Windows platform.
Dubbed "AfterMidnight" and "Assassin," both malware programs are designed to monitor and report back actions on the infected remote host computer running the Windows operating system and execute malicious actions specified by the CIA.
Since March, WikiLeaks has published hundreds of thousands of documents and secret hacking tools that the group claims came from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
This latest batch is the 8th release in the whistleblowing organization's 'Vault 7' series.
'AfterMidnight' Malware Framework
According to a statement from WikiLeaks, 'AfterMidnight' allows its operators to dynamically load and execute malicious payload on a target system.
The main controller of the malicious payload, disguised as a self-persisting Windows Dynamic-Link Library (DLL) file and executes "Gremlins" – small payloads that remain hidden on the target machine by subverting the functionality of targeted software, surveying the target, or providing services for other gremlins.
Once installed on a target machine, AfterMidnight uses an HTTPS-based Listening Post (LP) system called "Octopus" to check for any scheduled events. If found one, the malware framework downloads and stores all required components before loading all new gremlins in the memory.
According to a user guide provided in the latest leak, local storage related to AfterMidnight is encrypted with a key which is not stored on the target machine.
A special payload, called "AlphaGremlin," contains a custom script language which even allows operators to schedule custom tasks to be executed on the targeted system.
'Assassin' Malware Framework
Assassin is also similar to AfterMidnight and described as "an automated implant that provides a simple collection platform on remote computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system."
Once installed on the target computer, this tool runs the implant within a Windows service process, allowing the operators to perform malicious tasks on an infected machine, just like AfterMidnight.
Assassin consists of four subsystems: Implant, Builder, Command and Control, and Listening Post.
The 'Implant' provides the core logic and functionality of this tool on a target Windows machine, including communications and task execution. It is configured using the 'Builder' and deployed to a target computer via some undefined vector.
The 'Builder' configures Implant and 'Deployment Executables' before deployment and "provides a custom command line interface for setting the Implant configuration before generating the Implant," reads the tool's user guide.
The 'Command and Control' subsystem acts as an interface between the operator and the Listening Post (LP), while the LP allows the Assassin Implant to communicate with the command and control subsystem through a web server.
Last week, WikiLeaks dumped a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack tool, called Archimedes, allegedly created by the CIA to target computers inside a Local Area Network (LAN).
This practice by the US intelligence agencies of holding vulnerabilities, rather than disclosing them to the affected vendors, wreaked havoc across the world in past 3 days, when the WannaCry ransomware hit computers in 150 countries by using an SMB flaw that the NSA discovered and held, but "The Shadow Brokers" subsequently leaked it over a month ago.
Microsoft Slams NSA For Its Role in 'WannaCry' Attack
Even Microsoft President Brad Smith condemned the US intelligence agency's practice, saying that the "widespread damage" caused by WannaCry happened due to the NSA, CIA and other intelligence agencies for holding zero-day security vulnerabilities.
"This is an emerging pattern in 2017. We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability stolen from the NSA has affected customers around the world," Smith said.
Since March, the whistleblowing group has published 8 batches of "Vault 7" series, which includes the latest and last week leaks, along with the following batches:
Year Zero – dumped CIA hacking exploits for popular hardware and software.
Weeping Angel – spying tool used by the agency to infiltrate smart TV's, transforming them into covert microphones.
Dark Matter – focused on hacking exploits the agency designed to target iPhones and Macs.
Marble – revealed the source code of a secret anti-forensic framework, basically an obfuscator or a packer used by the CIA to hide the actual source of its malware.
Grasshopper – reveal a framework which allowed the agency to easily create custom malware for breaking into Microsoft's Windows and bypassing antivirus protection.
Scribbles – a piece of software allegedly designed to embed 'web beacons' into confidential documents, allowing the spying agency to track insiders and whistleblowers.
| Malware |
Malvertisers Exploited WebKit 0-Day to Redirect Browser Users to Scam Sites | https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/malvertisers-exploited-webkit-0-day-to.html | A malvertising group known as "ScamClub" exploited a zero-day vulnerability in WebKit-based browsers to inject malicious payloads that redirected users to fraudulent websites gift card scams.
The attacks, first spotted by ad security firm Confiant in late June 2020, leveraged a bug (CVE-2021–1801) that allowed malicious parties to bypass the iframe sandboxing policy in the browser engine that powers Safari and Google Chrome for iOS and run malicious code.
Specifically, the technique exploited the manner how WebKit handles JavaScript event listeners, thus making it possible to break out of the sandbox associated with an ad's inline frame element despite the presence of "allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" attribute that explicitly forbids any redirection unless the click event occurs inside the iframe.
To test this hypothesis, the researchers set about creating a simple HTML file containing a cross-origin sandboxed iframe and a button outside it that triggered an event to access the iframe and redirect the clicks to rogue websites.
"The [...] button is outside of the sandboxed frame after all," Confiant researcher Eliya Stein said. "However, if it does redirect, that means we have a browser security bug on our hands, which turned out to be the case when tested on WebKit based browsers, namely Safari on desktop and iOS."
Following responsible disclosure to Apple on June 23, 2020, the tech giant patched WebKit on December 2, 2020, and subsequently addressed the issue "with improved iframe sandbox enforcement" as part of security updates released earlier this month for iOS 14.4 and macOS Big Sur.
Confiant said the operators of ScamClub have delivered more than 50 million malicious impressions over the last 90 days, with as many as 16MM impacted ads being served in a single day.
"On the tactics side, this attacker historically favors what we refer to as a 'bombardment' strategy," Stein elaborated.
"Instead of trying to fly under the radar, they flood the ad tech ecosystem with tons of horrendous demand well aware that the majority of it will be blocked by some kind of gatekeeping, but they do this at incredibly high volumes in the hopes that the small percentage that slips through will do significant damage."
Confiant has also published a list of websites used by the ScamClub group to run its recent scam campaign.
| Vulnerability |
OpenSSL Vulnerable to Man-in-the-Middle Attack and Several Other Bugs | https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/openssl-vulnerable-to-man-in-middle.html | Remember OpenSSL Heartbleed vulnerability? Several weeks ago, the exposure of this security bug chilled the Internet, revealed that millions of websites were vulnerable to a flaw in the OpenSSL code which they used to encrypt their communications.
Now once again the OpenSSL Foundation has issued software updates to patch six new vulnerabilities, and two of them are critical.
MAN-IN-THE-MIDDLE ATTACK (CVE-2014-0224)
First critical vulnerability (CVE-2014-0224) in OpenSSL is "CCS Injection" - resides in ChangeCipherSpec (CCS) request sent during the handshake that could allow an attacker to perform a man-in-the-middle attack against the encrypted connection servers and clients.
By exploiting this vulnerability an attacker could intercept an encrypted connection which allows him to decrypt, read or manipulate the data. But the reported flaw is exploitable only if both server and client are vulnerable to this issue.
According to the OpenSSL advisory, "An attacker using a carefully crafted handshake can force the use of weak keying material in OpenSSL SSL/TLS clients and servers." All versions of OpenSSL are vulnerable on the client side. Only 1.0.1 and above are currently known to be vulnerable on the server side. SSL VPN (virtual private network) products are believed to be especially vulnerable to this flaw.
OpenSSL CCS Injection vulnerability is discovered by a Japanese security researcher, Masashi Kikuchi from Lepidum security firm. According to him this bug was existed since the very first release of OpenSSL. RedHat also posted a detailed explanation about this bug on their security blog.
DTLS invalid fragment vulnerability (CVE-2014-0195): Sending invalid DTLS fragments to a OpenSSL DTLS client or server can lead to a buffer overrun attack. A potential hacker could exploit this flaw to run arbitrary code on a vulnerable client or server. This vulnerability also marked as critical bug.
DTLS recursion flaw (CVE-2014-0221): A remote attacker can send an invalid DTLS (Datagram Transport Layer Security) handshake to an OpenSSL DTLS client, which will force the code to recurse eventually crashing in a DoS attack. This attack is limited to the applications using OpenSSL as a DTLS client.
DTLS mainly used in VOIP and other communication related applications like Cisco Systems' AnyConnect VPN Client. Chrome and Firefox web browser also support DTLS for WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) for P2P file sharing and Voice/Video Chats.
Other important OpenSSL vulnerabilities are:
SSL_MODE_RELEASE_BUFFERS NULL pointer dereference (CVE-2014-0198), allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service via a NULL pointer dereference.
SSL_MODE_RELEASE_BUFFERS session injection or denial of service (CVE-2010-5298), allows remote attackers to inject data across sessions or cause a denial of service.
Anonymous ECDH denial of service (CVE-2014-3470), OpenSSL TLS clients enabling anonymous ECDH (Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellman) ciphersuites are subject to a denial of service attack.
But the good news is that these vulnerabilities are not as critical as Heartbleed bug. The patched versions 0.9.8za, 1.0.0m and 1.0.1h are available on the project website to download and The OpenSSL Foundation is urging companies to update their implementation as soon as possible.
| Vulnerability |
New NAME:WRECK Vulnerabilities Impact Nearly 100 Million IoT Devices | https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/new-namewreck-vulnerabilities-impact.html | Security researchers have uncovered nine vulnerabilities affecting four TCP/IP stacks impacting more than 100 million consumer and enterprise devices that could be exploited by an attacker to take control of a vulnerable system.
Dubbed "NAME:WRECK" by Forescout and JSOF, the flaws are the latest in series of studies undertaken as part of an initiative called Project Memoria to study the security of widely-used TCP/IP stacks that are incorporated by various vendors in their firmware to offer internet and network connectivity features.
"These vulnerabilities relate to Domain Name System (DNS) implementations, causing either Denial of Service (DoS) or Remote Code Execution (RCE), allowing attackers to take target devices offline or to take control over them," the researchers said.
The name comes from the fact that parsing of domain names can break (i.e., "wreck") DNS implementations in TCP/IP stacks, adding to a recent uptick in vulnerabilities such as SigRed, SAD DNS, and DNSpooq that leverage the "phonebook of the internet" as an attack vector.
They also mark the fifth time security weaknesses have been identified in the protocol stacks that underpin millions of internet-connected devices —
URGENT/11
Ripple20
AMNESIA:33, and
NUMBER:JACK
Specifically, the latest research offers a closer look at the "message compression" scheme used in the DNS protocol that "eliminates the repetition of domain names in a message" with the intent of reducing the size of messages, uncovering multiple flaws in FreeBSD (12.1), IPnet (VxWorks 6.6), Nucleus NET (4.3), and NetX (6.0.1) stacks.
In a plausible real-world attack scenario, adversaries can exploit these flaws to find their way into an organization's network via an internet-facing device that issues DNS requests to a server and exfiltrate sensitive information, or even use them as a stepping stone to sabotage critical equipment.
With the exception of IPnet, FreeBSD, Nucleus NET, and NetX have all released patches, requiring device vendors using vulnerable versions of the software to ship an updated firmware to their customers.
But as with the previous flaws, there are several hurdles to applying the fixes, what with the lack of information regarding the TCP/IP stack that runs on a device, the difficulty in delivering patches because the devices are not centrally managed, or they cannot be taken offline due to their central role in mission-critical processes like healthcare and industrial control systems.
In other words, besides the effort required to identify all the vulnerable devices, it could take a considerable amount of time before the security patches trickle down from the stack vendor to the firmware of the device.
Even worse, in some cases, it may never be feasible to push a patch, as a result of which many of the impacted devices will most likely remain exposed to attacks for years to come or until they are decommissioned.
While a quick fix may not be in sight, the bright spot in the findings is that there are mitigations that make it easier to detect attempts to take advantage of these flaws. For a start, Forescout has released an open-source script to detect devices running the affected stacks. In addition, the researchers also recommend enforcing network segmentation controls until the patches are in place and monitoring all network traffic for malicious packets that attempt to exploit flaws targeting DNS, mDNS, and DHCP clients.
The study is also expected to be presented at the Black Hat Asia 2021 conference on May 6, 2021.
"NAME:WRECK is a case where bad implementations of a specific part of an RFC can have disastrous consequences that spread across different parts of a TCP/IP stack and then different products using that stack," the researchers said.
"It is also interesting that simply not implementing support for compression (as seen for instance in lwIP) is an effective mitigation against this type of vulnerability. Since the bandwidth saving associated with this type of compression is almost meaningless in a world of fast connectivity, we believe that support for DNS message compression currently introduces more problems than it solves."
| Malware |
Rising Demand for DDoS Protection Software Market By 2020-2028 | https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/rising-demand-for-ddos-protection.html | Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a malicious form of attack that disrupts the regular network traffic by overwhelming the website with more traffic than the server can handle. The main aim of this kind of cyberattack is to render the website inoperable.
Over recent years, these kinds of attacks are increasing, fueling the demand for the best DDoS protection software solutions. Many unplanned data center outages are owing to DDoS attacks. The threat of DDoS is due to access to easy-to-use tools and the profit potential through extortion.
The attacks target businesses directly, leading to substantial financial and personal losses, making it critical to have robust DDoS protection software solutions in place.
According to the report of Market Research Inc, the DDoS protection Software Market is predicted to reach +14% CAGR by 2020 – 2028.
Important Statistics to illustrate the growing demand for DDoS Software Solutions
Demand for the DDoS software market is on the rise due to the exponential increase in multi-vector DDoS attacks and the ease with which DDoS-for-hire services are available today.
These statistics show continuous growth in the deadly DDoS attacks and the impending requirement to have a robust DDoS protection pool.
There has been a perceptible rise in DDoS attacks between 2014 and 2017, up 2.5 times.
By 2020, the total number of DDoS attacks reached 17 million, with the cost of one such attack between $20,000-$40,000 per hour.
The average size of such an attack was a whopping 26.37 GBps in Q2 2018 that increased by a mind-blowing 967% to reach 100 Gbps in Q1 2019.
The largest attack so far was GitHub in February 2018 with 1.3TBps.
China was the top offender in DDoS attacks in Q3 2020, accounting for 70.20% of all attacks.
In Q3 2020, China was the leading targeted country, with 72.83% of attacks.
DDoS activity increased by 542% between Q4 2019 and Q1 2020
The global DDoS protection and mitigation market size is anticipated to increase at a CAGR 0f 14%, from USD 2.4 billion in 2019 to USD 6 billion by 2028
Factors Driving the Growth of DDoS Protection and Mitigation Market
The incidents of cyberattacks have increased in recent times, mainly due to the shift towards digitization, an increase in the number of connected devices, and the rise in the computational power of processors. There is a critical need to develop software solutions to mitigate these threats.
The main factors that would drive the growth of the DDoS protection and mitigation market between 2020 -2028 include the rise in the penetration of the Internet of Things (IoT) and connected devices and the demand from small and medium enterprises.
Organizations realize the impact of these attacks and want to have a disaster recovery plan in place beforehand.
How DDoS Protection Works
Many enterprises are faced with the question - How to protect my website from DDoS attacks? Today, there are many vendors offering software solutions that guard websites against these attacks.
It uses algorithms and advanced software to manage incoming traffic to the website. It denies access to illegitimate traffic and lets the legitimate one filter through.
DDoS Prevention Solution
The DDoS protection program includes buying and managing the equipment that can sift out the receiving traffic and resist the attack. These are cloud-based security services and network devices that moderate the incoming threat.
Between 2020-2028, hardware solutions and services are expected to grow to ascertain network connectivity and reduce downtime in case of equipment or power failures.
DDoS Deployment Modes
DDoS protection and mitigation market are divided into the cloud, on-premises, and hybrid when it comes to deployment. The hybrid model is expected to grow maximum in the forecast period. It allows organizations to keep their essential data within their premises and shift the non-critical one to the cloud.
In recent times, many DDoS attacks were undetected by on-premises and cloud-based solutions. Organizations could not detect and thwart them; hence, they are shifting towards a hybrid deployment model.
Key players offering DDoS Detection and Mitigation Solutions
With the increase in DDoS attacks, there has been an increasing number of players offering software solutions to detect and mitigate the attacks.
The top players in the market are:
NETSCOUT
Indusface Managed DDoS Mitigation
Akamai Technologies
Cloudflare
Link11
Huawei Technologies
Verisign
Nexusguard
Largest Market Share in The DDoS Protection and Mitigation Market
According to the Market Research Inc report, North America would have the biggest, largest market share in the DDoS protection and mitigation market in the forecast period. The main drivers for having a huge market size are that it was one of the early adopters of the DDoS protection and mitigation solution and has no solution providers in this field. Many businesses in North America are implementing DDoS protection and mitigation solutions to thwart these threats in the bud.
Asia Pacific (APAC) will also see a rise in its market growth due to fast economic growth and stability in developing countries, and better regulatory reforms.
In recent times the DDoS attacks are becoming more and more sophisticated, with the threat and impact of network DDoS attacks changing over time. Though the volumetric attacks are quite the same, the application-specific attacks and targeted, high-intensity ones increase in number.
DDoS protection software solutions aim to eradicate the downtime of these attacks and enhance website availability to keep businesses productive and efficient. On-premises, cloud, and hybrid software solutions for small, medium, and large enterprises is the way forward.
| Cyber_Attack |
Detecting the "Next" SolarWinds-Style Cyber Attack | https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/detecting-next-solarwinds-attack.html | The SolarWinds attack, which succeeded by utilizing the sunburst malware, shocked the cyber-security industry. This attack achieved persistence and was able to evade internal systems long enough to gain access to the source code of the victim.
Because of the far-reaching SolarWinds deployments, the perpetrators were also able to infiltrate many other organizations, looking for intellectual property and other assets.
Among the co-victims: US government, government contractors, Information Technology companies, and NGOs. An incredible amount of sensitive data was stolen from several customers after a trojanized version of SolarWinds' application was installed on their internal structures.
Looking at the technical capabilities of the malware, as you will see, this particular attack was quite impressive. A particular file, named SolarWinds.Orion.Core.BusinessLayer.dll is a SolarWinds digitally signed component of the Orion software framework.
The threat actors installed a backdoor that communicates via HTTP to third-party servers. After an initial dormant period of up to two weeks, it retrieves and executes commands, called "Jobs," which includes the ability to transfer files, execute files, profile the system, reboot the machine, and disable system services.
So how could one protect the organization from Sunburst or a similar attack? Supply chain attacks have the advantage of establishing an initial foothold under the guise of a trusted 3rd party. But that's where the distinction ends; from there on, they progress like any other attack, and they can be detected if we know where to look.
Developing SIEM rules, using the SolarWinds attack as an example
Let's start with Sigma rules; these create a sort of a common language to create and share quality queries regardless of the SIEM your organization uses. The Cymulate platform will produce Sigma Rules for you to download these queries to your SIEM. This will enable Security Operations teams to build out the elements needed to detect future attacks. As you can see below in the 3 examples, the Sigma Rule is the same, yet the custom query is specifically for that SIEM's language. At the click of a button, you can switch to your preferred SIEM.
Example 1: Splunk:
Example 2: Qradar:
Example 3: Azure Sentinel:
Although Sigma rules are designed mostly for queries, one can use them to build a full anti-attack-chain SIEM or EDR rule. In the case of the SolarWinds Sunburst attack and many other attacks, Cymulate Sigma Rules are queries that search for the IOBs of the attack. Each sigma rule will query the SIEM for an IOB of one stage of the attack.
When the IOBs from the sigma rules are combined, they can result in a specific rule for the target system – something that can, with a high degree of confidence, point out the attack without "inventing the wheel" all over again. All the required IOB's are in place – in the Sigma rules – you just need to reach out your hand and take them.
Let's look at the specific case of a recreated SolarWinds attack on the Windows platform and hunt it together.
Hunting SolarWinds on Microsoft Windows
The Cymulate Platform provides us the capability to replicate the supply chain attack, which starts with an Exchange server mailbox export. The subsequent stages of the attack, available in the Cymulate platform to simulate the attack, can be seen in the screenshot.
The first event will not get any trigger by Windows, but it will be written in various network logs. Since the event itself cannot be very specific, we will leave it as optional for placement in a general rule. Let's continue.
The next event in the attack is downloading content with PowerShell. Such an event can be monitored with Windows Event IDs 4103 and 4104, which can also show the actual code being run, but we don't want to limit ourselves to a specific method because, let's face it: PowerShell is not the only tool an attacker can use.
What is common to all tools is that while downloading content, an object is created in the system, and for that, there is a Windows Event ID 4663 with an indicator of Access mask 0x1 or, if you use Sysmon, Event ID 11.
Below is a general screenshot of a 4663 Event ID with the relevant fields highlighted. This is the event that the Cymulate Sigma rule detects, and it is also the first IOB in the rule that we will create. You can find more on this Event ID here.
Next in line is the next stage in the attack: Task Scheduler: Masquerading Tasks triggered on the windows lock screen for lateral movement. Once again, it is irrelevant exactly which Tasks are being masqueraded; what is important is that there are Windows Event ID's that can help us identify this chain of events.
The Event ID's are:
4698 - task created
4700 - Scheduled task enabled.
4702 - Scheduled task updated.
4699 - Scheduled task removed.
What is relevant for us is, of course, is 4698 as this will pop up when a new task is created. Events of updating, enabling and/or removing a task are a good enhancement but optional. Personally, I would recommend adding an option of 4699, since there is always a possibility that the attacker would like to remove the task after completion to cover his tracks.
So, what we will want for minimal requirements is 4698 with a set of specific regexes in the "Command" field in the event, that match known executable types for example:
- '.exe' - '.py - '.ps1' - '.msi - '.msp' - '.mst' - '.ws' - '.wsf' - '.vb' - '.vbs' - '.jst' - '.cmd' - '.cpl'
For complex cases, regular expressions, such as those below, can be used:
- '^([A-Za-z0-9+/]{4})*([A-Za-z0-9+/]{3}=|[A-Za-z0-9+/]{2}==)?$'
-'^([A-Za-z0-9 \/]{4})*([A-Za-z0-9 \/]{3}=|[A-Za-z0-9 \/]{2}==)?$'
Pay special attention to the last two IOBs (regexes): these match a base64 pattern. Although "Scheduled Task" receives a string as an input, it is possible to write in it an obfuscated/encrypted form of a command. For example, "python" as command and "base64.b64decode(some base64 payload)" as an argument, thus effectively making your task into "decoding base64 payload" tool.
Once again, all the indicators can be found in the Sigma Rules supplied by Cymulate. We will call this list and other upcoming lists of IOB's just "relevant IOB list" for the purpose of convenience. Below is the general view of the 4698 Event ID of creating a new task.
So, by now, we have covered two events in the chain. These should occur on the same machine and with the same username. After that, the process in your task will be executed, resulting in 4688 Event ID with Creator Process name: TaskScheduler or TaskScheduler.dll or taskeng.exe (depending on the version of build you use), and New Process Name will have one of those IOB's in the executables list. So, at this stage, our Rule looks like this:
(4663 + Access mask 0x1)🡪 (4698 and relevant IOB list)🡪 (4688+list of relevant Creator Process name + list of relevant IOBs as part of New process Name)
OR
4663 + Access mask 0x1 or Sysmon 11)🡪 [(4698 + relevant IOB list) 🡪(4688+(TaskScheduler.dll or taskeng.exe))]
The 🡪 sign represents "followed by" operation
The next stage in the attack is running DLL file with rundll32. This is a simple IOB, which, by the way, can be run in a previous step as well. In this specific case it is 4688+rundll.32
Next is ADFind : Enumerating an AD Group using ADFind Masqueraded as csrss.exe. This step is a bit tricky. During this step an attacker masquerades his enumerating tool as some legitimate file. However, before this can happen, the illegitimate file has to be written somewhere on one of your drives (preferably in the system folder) with the legitimate name.
In this specific case it is csrss.exe, but there is quite a large number of file names that could be used for the same purpose for example:
- 'svchost.exe'. - rundll32.exe. - services.exe. - powershell.exe. - regsvr32.exe. - spoolsv.exe
- lsass.exe. - smss.exe. - csrss.exe. - conhost.exe. - wininit.exe. - winlogon.exe. - explorer.exe
- taskhost.exe. - Taskmgr.exe. - sihost.exe - RuntimeBroker.exe - smartscreen.exe.
Again, no need to search for all of them, they are already supplied in the relevant Sigma rule.
Below is an example of one possible Sigma rule for this specific step, which detects creating a file with one of the specified above names. But with a hash that is different from the original. Whether overriding a system file or creating a new path, it will still result in a 4663 Event ID (or Sysmon Event ID 11), and one of the names below will be found in the payload.
Working with System files also requires privileged access, so there inevitably will be privilege escalation, which is also documented as 4688 Event ID (file access) and Token Elevation Type of %%1936 or %%1937, which are types for system and administrator access respectively.
Below is a screenshot of the 4688 Event ID with relevant fields highlighted.
Optionally you could search for 4672 Event ID with any of the privilege escalation strings, but the event of privilege escalation can happen at any step in the attack. We recommend a separate rule for this, which should be correlated with the rule we are building.
Let's take a look at our rule at this stage:
(4663 + Access mask 0x1 or Sysmon 11)🡪 [(4698 + relevant IOB list) 🡪(4688+(TaskScheduler.dll or taskeng.exe)) 🡪 (4688 and rundll32) 🡪 (4663 or Sysmon 11 + generic list of system files) 🡪 (4688 and 1 of files in list and Token Elevation Type (%%1936 OR %%1937))]
The next step is "Execute base64-encoded PowerShell from Windows Registry". What happens here is an attacker executes an obfuscated code previously written into a registry value. As you could understand, before he can do this, he needs to create a new registry value or modify an existing one.
A Windows event ID 4657 and a value matching base64 pattern (which can be identified with regexes that we have already seen in a preceding step) can help identify this step. The event can include "Existing registry value modified" or "Creating new registry value" as the Operation Type. All the IOB's, as mentioned before, can be obtained from the supplied Sigma Rules.
This event can show you other valuable information, such as:
1) What key was involved.
The format is: \REGISTRY\HIVE\PATH where:
HIVE:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = \REGISTRY\MACHINE
HKEY_CURRENT_USER = \REGISTRY\USER\[USER_SID], where [USER_SID] is the SID of current user.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT = \REGISTRY\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes
HKEY_USERS = \REGISTRY\USER
HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG = \REGISTRY\MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Hardware Profiles\Current
2) What is the originating process.
3) What is the old value and the new value.
Below you can view a general representation of 4657 Event ID.
Taking into account possible timeframes, since the entire operation will probably be scripted, we can safely say that if successful, steps 2-6 will take no more than 5 seconds. The entire chain until execution of code stored in the registry could be no more than 10 minutes.
After adding those variables, what we have is a chain of events that can be correlated:
It will all originate on one machine.
It will be started as the same user.
The operational rule will look like the below:
{
(4663 + Access mask 0x1 or Sysmon 11)🡪
[ (4698 + relevant IOB list) 🡪
(4688+(TaskScheduler.dll or taskeng.exe)) 🡪
(4688 and rundll32) 🡪
(4663 or Sysmon 11 + generic list of system files) 🡪
(4688 and 1 of files in list and Token Elevation Type(%%1936 OR %%1937))🡪 (4657 +New value created OR existing value modified+ base64 matching pattern in value in time frame up to 5s)]
in time frame of 10 mins
}
So now, if you have built this SIEM or EDR rule, using Cymulate-provided Sigma rules, and you see an alert from it – there is a good chance you are experiencing the SolarWinds attack right now.
If you still have your doubt, you can always add some optional stages and enhance them even further by adding two next stages to the rule. These are Exchange Server Mailbox Export Cleanup and Exchange Exfiltration using basic HTTP Request, respectively.
Even though Windows doesn't have a built-in Event ID for HTTP/S requests, there will always be {4660 on mailbox🡪 (HTTP request + 4663 of filename.zip/rar/tar/other)}. In order to get an event of HTTP/S requests, additional systems, for example, a network traffic analysis system, can assist here.
Optimize your Security Operations with Cymulate and Sigma Rules
As you have seen in the breakdown of this particular attack, you can use IOB's in Sigma Rules. This will help your security operations to challenge, assess, measure, and optimize. This can easily be accomplished by the Cymulate platform in all areas. The steps as shown in this article are meant to help with the optimization and guide through how to prevent a SolarWinds type attack. As you have seen from the Cymulate platform, a scenario, whether it be simple, or complex can assist with optimizing your SIEM or EDR rules. This will enhance your organization's security against the most sophisticated threats with low effort.
Good Hunting to you!
And as they say in the Hunger Games, "may the odds be ever in your favor."
This article was written by Michael Ioffe, Senior Security Researcher at Cymulate.
| Cyber_Attack |
Persistent XSS vulnerability in eBuddy Web Messenger | https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/persistent-xss-vulnerability-in-ebuddy.html | Persistent XSS vulnerability in eBuddy Web Messenger
A team member from Virtual Luminous Security, Russian Federation, has discovered a persistent XSS vulnerability in eBuddy (the biggest web IM solution in the world) by transmitting messages with embedded encoded javascript code.
In-depth detail
eBuddy Web Messenger suffers from an encoded-Persistent XSS vulnerability in the messaging function. (while sendingA message with embedded code to another authorized user in eBuddy WebMessenger).
Exploit example
Plain XSS (Not going to store, nor execute)
<script>alert('eBuddy Persistent XSS');</script>
Encoded
text=%3Cscript%3Ealert%28'eBuddy%20Persistent%20XSS'%29%3C/script%3E
[*] The attacker sends the encoded embedded code in an IM message.
[*] The victim receives the message with the encoded embedded code and it executes on the victims browser.
| Vulnerability |
Apple Users, Beware! A Nearly-Undetectable Malware Targeting Mac Computers | https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/macos-malware-fruitfly.html | Yes, even Mac could also get viruses that could silently spy on its users. So, if you own a Mac and think you are immune to malware, you are wrong.
An unusual piece of malware that can remotely take control of webcams, screen, mouse, keyboards, and install additional malicious software has been infecting hundreds of Mac computers for more than five years—and it was detected just a few months back.
Dubbed FruitFly, the Mac malware was initially detected earlier this year by Malwarebytes researcher Thomas Reed, and Apple quickly released security patches to address the dangerous malware.
Now months later, Patrick Wardle, an ex-NSA hacker and now chief security researcher at security firm Synack, discovered around 400 Mac computers infected with the newer strain of the FruitFly malware (FruitFly 2) in the wild.
Wardle believes the number of infected Macs with FruitFly 2 would likely be much higher, as he only had access to some servers used to control FruitFly.
Although it is unknown who is behind FruitFly or how the malware gets into Mac computers, the researchers believe the nasty malware has been active for around ten years, as some of its code dates back to as far as 1998.
"FruitFly, the first OS X/macOS malware of 2017, is a rather intriguing specimen. Selectively targeting biomedical research institutions, it is thought to have flown under the radar for many years," Wardle wrote in the abstract of his talk, which he is going to present at the Black Hat later this week.
Since the initial infection vector for FruitFly is unclear, like most malware, Fruitfly could likely infect Macs either through an infected website delivering the infection or via phishing emails or a booby-trapped application.
FruitFly is surveillance malware that's capable of executing shell commands, moving and clicking a mouse cursor, capturing webcam, killing processes, grabbing the system's uptime, retrieving screen captures, and even alerting the hacker when victims are again active on their Mac.
"The only reason I can think of that this malware has not been spotted before now is that it is being used in very tightly targeted attacks, limiting its exposure," Reed wrote in the January blog post.
"Although there is no evidence at this point linking this malware to a specific group, the fact that it has been seen specifically at biomedical research institutions certainly seems like it could be the result of exactly that kind of espionage."
Wardle was able to uncover FruitFly victims after registering a backup command and control (C&C) server that was once used by the attacker. He then noticed around 400 Mac users infected with FruitFly started connecting to that server.
From there, the researcher was also able to see IP addresses of FruitFly infected victims, indicating 90 percent of victims were located in the United States.
Wardle was even able to see the name of victims' Macs as well, making it "really easy to pretty accurately say who is getting infected," he told Forbes.
But rather than taking over those computers or spying on the victims, Wardle contacted law enforcement and handed over what he found to law enforcement agents, who are now investigating the matter.
Wardle believes surveillance was the primary purpose of FruitFly, though it is yet unclear whether it is government or other hacker groups.
"This did not look like cyber crime type behaviour; there were no ads, no keyloggers, or ransomware," Wardle said. "Its features had looked like they were actions that would support interactivity—it had the ability to alert the attacker when users were active on the computer, it could simulate mouse clicks and keyboard events."
Since the Fruitfly's code even includes Linux shell commands, the malware would work just fine on Linux operating system. So, it would not come as a surprise if a Linux variant of Fruitfly was in operation.
| Malware |
This Flaw Could Have Allowed Hackers to Hack Any Instagram Account Within 10 Minutes | https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/hack-instagram-accounts.html | Watch out! Facebook-owned photo-sharing service has recently patched a critical vulnerability that could have allowed hackers to compromise any Instagram account without requiring any interaction from the targeted users.
Instagram is growing quickly—and with the most popular social media network in the world after Facebook, the photo-sharing network absolutely dominates when it comes to user engagement and interactions.
Despite having advanced security mechanisms in place, bigger platforms like Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, and Instagram are not completely immune to hackers and contain severe vulnerabilities.
Some vulnerabilities have recently been patched, some are still under the process of being fixed, and many others most likely do exist, but haven't been found just yet.
Details of one such critical vulnerability in Instagram surfaced today on the Internet that could have allowed a remote attacker to reset the password for any Instagram account and take complete control over it.
Discovered and responsibly reported by Indian bug bounty hunter Laxman Muthiyah, the vulnerability resided in the password recovery mechanism implemented by the mobile version of Instagram.
The "password reset" or "password recovery" is a feature that allows users to regain access to their account on a website in case they forgot their password.
On Instagram, users have to confirm a six-digit secret passcode (that expires after 10 minutes) sent to their associated mobile number or email account in order to prove their identity.
That means, one out of a million combinations can unlock any Instagram account using brute force attack, but it is not as simple as it sounds, because Instagram has rate-limiting enabled to prevent such attacks.
However, Laxman found that this rate limiting can be bypassed by sending brute force requests from different IP addresses and leveraging race condition, sending concurrent requests to process multiple attempts simultaneously.
"Race hazard (concurrent requests) and IP rotation allowed me to bypass it. Otherwise, it wouldn't be possible. 10 minutes expiry time is the key to their rate limiting mechanism, that's why they didn't enforce permanent blocking of codes," Laxman told The Hacker News.
As shown in the above video demonstration, Laxman successfully demonstrated the vulnerability to hijack an Instagram account by quickly attempting 200,000 different passcode combinations (20% of all) without getting blocked.
"In a real attack scenario, the attacker needs 5000 IPs to hack an account. It sounds big, but that's actually easy if you use a cloud service provider like Amazon or Google. It would cost around 150 dollars to perform the complete attack of one million codes."
Laxman has also released a proof-of-concept exploit for the vulnerability, which has now been patched by Instagram, and the company awarded Laxman with $30,000 reward as part of its bug bounty program.
To protect your accounts against several types of online attacks, as well to reduce your chances of being compromised where attackers directly target vulnerable applications, users are highly recommended to enable "two-factor authentication," which could prevent hackers from accessing your accounts even if they somehow manage to steal your passwords.
| Vulnerability |
DailyMotion Hacked — 85 Million User Accounts Stolen | https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/dailymotion-video-hacked.html | Another day, another data breach.
This time a popular video sharing platform DailyMotion has allegedly been hacked and tens of millions of users information have been stolen.
Breach notification service LeakedSource announced the data breach on Monday after the company obtained 85.2 Million records from Dailymotion.
According to LeakedSource, the DailyMotion data breach appears to have taken place on October 20, 2016, which means it is possible that hackers have been circulating the data for over a month.
The stolen data consists of 85.2 Million unique email addresses and usernames and around 20 percent of the accounts (more than 18 Million users) had hashed passwords tied to them.
The passwords were protected using the Bcrypt hashing algorithm with ten rounds of rekeying, making it difficult for hackers to obtain user's actual password.
Bcrypt is a cryptographic algorithm that makes the hashing process so slow that it would literally take centuries to actual brute-force password of a user.
ZDNet received a sample of the stolen data and confirmed that the data came from the Dailymotion website, but representatives for Vivendi, the majority owner of Dailymotion did not yet respond to any comments.
If you are one of the 18 million DailyMotion users who had their hashed password leaked, you are advised to change your password on the entertainment website as well as on others where you have reused your password.
LeakedSource has added the DailyMotion stolen data to its search index, so you can check if your account has been affected.
Also use a good password manager to create complex passwords for different sites as well as remember them. We have listed some good password managers that could help you understand the importance of password manager and choose one according to your requirement.
| Data_Breaches |
Hackers Selling Unpatched Microsoft Windows Zero-Day Exploit for $90,000 | https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/windows-zero-day-exploit.html | How much a Windows zero-day exploit that affects all versions of Windows operating system costs on the black market?
It's $95,000, at least, for the one recently spotted by security researchers.
Researchers from Trustwave's SpiderLabs team have uncovered a zero-day exploit on Russian underground malware forum exploit.in, affecting all versions of Microsoft Windows OS from Windows 2000 all the way up to a fully patched version of Windows 10.
The zero-day exploit for the previously unknown vulnerability in "every version" of Windows is openly sold for $90,000 (over £62,000).
The security team originally discovered the zero-day exploit last month when the firm saw its ad on a Russian hacking forum for $95,000. However, the price has now been dropped to $90,000.
The zero-day vulnerability in question claims to be a Local Privilege Escalation (LPE) bug in Windows that offers admin access to run malicious code on a victim's PC and is less dangerous than Remote Code Execution flaws that allow attackers to compromise systems remotely.
In other words, the zero-day exploit by itself will not be able to compromise a system, but as Trustwave explained, would nonetheless be used in almost any scenario as "a very much needed puzzle piece in the overall infection process."
The seller, who goes by the name "BuggiCorp," claims the flaw is located in the win32k.sys kernel driver, and exists through the way Windows handles objects "with certain properties," saying:
"The exploit successfully escapes from ILL/appcontainer (LOW), bypassing (more precisely: doesn't get affected at all [by]) all existing protection mechanisms such as ASLR, DEP, SMEP, etc. [The zero-day exploit] relies solely on the KERNEL32 and USER32 libraries [DLLs]."
Additional zero-day exploit capabilities include the installation of a rootkit, use on a POS systems and steal credit card data, limited control over a web server and installation of malware on systems, according to Trustwave.
The author went to prove the authenticity of his claims by providing two videos of the exploit on YouTube, from which one can be viewed below.
Trustwave alerted Microsoft of the potential Windows exploit.
"Windows is the only platform with a customer commitment to investigate reported security issues, and proactively update impacted devices as soon as possible," Microsoft said in a statement. "We recommend customers use Windows 10 and the Microsoft Edge browser for the best protection. Our standard policy is to provide solutions via our current Update Tuesday schedule."
| Vulnerability |
Researchers Find Additional Infrastructure Used By SolarWinds Hackers | https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/researchers-find-additional.html | The sprawling SolarWinds cyberattack which came to light last December was known for its sophistication in the breadth of tactics used to infiltrate and persist in the target infrastructure, so much so that Microsoft went on to call the threat actor behind the campaign "skillful and methodic operators who follow operations security (OpSec) best practices to minimize traces, stay under the radar, and avoid detection."
As further proof of this, new research published today shows that the threat actor carefully planned each stage of the operation to "avoid creating the type of patterns that make tracking them simple," thus deliberately making forensic analysis difficult.
By analyzing telemetry data associated with previously published indicators of compromise, RiskIQ said it identified an additional set of 18 servers with high confidence that likely communicated with the targeted, secondary Cobalt Strike payloads delivered via the TEARDROP and RAINDROP malware, representing a 56% jump in the attacker's known command-and-control footprint.
The "hidden patterns" were uncovered through an analysis of the SSL certificates used by the group.
The development comes a week after the U.S. intelligence agencies formally attributed the supply chain hack to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). The compromise of the SolarWinds software supply chain is said to have given APT29 (aka Cozy Bear or The Dukes) the ability to remotely spy or potentially disrupt more than 16,000 computer systems worldwide, according to the U.S. government.
The attacks are being tracked by the cybersecurity community under various monikers, including UNC2452 (FireEye), Nobelium (Microsoft), SolarStorm (Unit 42), StellarParticle (Crowdstrike), and Dark Halo (Volexity), citing differences in the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) employed by the adversary with that of known attacker profiles, counting APT29.
"Researchers or products attuned to detecting known APT29 activity would fail to recognize the campaign as it was happening," said Kevin Livelli, RiskIQ's director of threat intelligence. "They would have an equally hard time following the trail of the campaign once they discovered it, which is why we knew so little about the later stages of the SolarWinds campaign."
Earlier this year, the Windows maker noted how the attackers went to great lengths to ensure that the initial backdoor (SUNBURST aka Solorigate) and the post-compromise implants (TEARDROP and RAINDROP) stayed separated as much as possible so as to hinder efforts to spot their malicious activity. This was done so that in the event the Cobalt Strike implants were discovered on victim networks; it wouldn't reveal the compromised SolarWinds binary and the supply chain attack that led to its deployment in the first place.
But according to RiskIQ, this is not the only step the APT29 actor took to cover its tracks, which included —
Purchasing domains via third-party resellers and at domain auctions under varying names, in an attempt to obscure ownership information and repurchasing expired domains hitherto owned by legitimate organizations over a span of several years.
Hosting the first-stage attack infrastructure (SUNBURST) entirely in the U.S., the second-stage (TEARDROP and RAINDROP) primarily within the U.S., and the third-stage (GOLDMAX aka SUNSHUTTLE) mainly in foreign countries.
Designing attack code such that no two pieces of malware deployed during successive stages of the infection chain looked alike, and
Engineering the first-stage SUNBURST backdoor to beacon to its command-and-control (C2) servers with random jitter after a two-week period, in a likely attempt to outlive the typical lifespan of event logging on most host-based Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) platforms.
"Identifying a threat actor's attack infrastructure footprint typically involves correlating IPs and domains with known campaigns to detect patterns," Livelli said.
"However, our analysis shows the group took extensive measures to throw researchers off their trail," suggesting the threat actor took extensive measures to avoid creating such patterns.
| Cyber_Attack |
Your Linux Machine Can Be Hacked Remotely With Just A Malicious DNS Response | https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/linux-buffer-overflow-code.html | A critical vulnerability has been discovered in Systemd, the popular init system and service manager for Linux operating systems, that could allow remote attackers to potentially trigger a buffer overflow to execute malicious code on the targeted machines via a DNS response.
The vulnerability, designated as CVE-2017-9445, actually resides in the 'dns_packet_new' function of 'systemd-resolved,' a DNS response handler component that provides network name resolution to local applications.
According to an advisory published Tuesday, a specially crafted malicious DNS response can crash 'systemd-resolved' program remotely when the system tries to lookup for a hostname on an attacker-controlled DNS service.
Eventually, large DNS response overflows the buffer, allowing an attacker to overwrite the memory which leads to remote code execution.
This means the attackers can remotely run any malware on the targeted system or server via their evil DNS service.
"In systemd through 233, certain sizes passed to dns_packet_new in systemd-resolved can cause it to allocate a buffer that's too small," explains Chris Coulson, Ubuntu developer at Canonical.
"A malicious DNS server can exploit this by responding with a specially crafted TCP payload to trick systemd-resolved into allocating a buffer that's too small, and subsequently write arbitrary data beyond the end of it."
This vulnerability has been present since Systemd version 223 introduced in June 2015 and is present in all the way up to, including Systemd version 233 launched in March this year.
Of course, systemd-resolved must be running on your system for it to be vulnerable.
The bug is present in Ubuntu versions 17.04 and version 16.10; Debian versions Stretch (aka Debian 9), Buster (aka 10) and Sid (aka Unstable); and various other Linux distributions that use Systemd.
Security patches have been rolled out to address the issue, so users and system administrators are strongly recommended to install them and update their Linux distros as soon as possible.
| Vulnerability |
NSA, FBI Reveal Hacking Methods Used by Russian Military Hackers | https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/nsa-fbi-reveal-hacking-methods-used-by.html | An ongoing brute-force attack campaign targeting enterprise cloud environments has been spearheaded by the Russian military intelligence since mid-2019, according to a joint advisory published by intelligence agencies in the U.K. and U.S.
The National Security Agency (NSA), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the U.K.'s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) formally attributed the incursions to the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) 85th Main Special Service Center (GTsSS).
The threat actor is also tracked under various monikers, including APT28 (FireEye Mandiant), Fancy Bear (CrowdStrike), Sofacy (Kaspersky), STRONTIUM (Microsoft), and Iron Twilight (Secureworks).
APT28 has a track record of leveraging password spray and brute-force login attempts to plunder valid credentials that enable future surveillance or intrusion operations. In November 2020, Microsoft disclosed credential harvesting activities staged by the adversary aimed at companies involved in researching vaccines and treatments for COVID-19.
What's different this time around is the actor's reliance on software containers to scale its brute-force attacks.
"The campaign uses a Kubernetes cluster in brute force access attempts against the enterprise and cloud environments of government and private sector targets worldwide," CISA said. "After obtaining credentials via brute force, the GTsSS uses a variety of known vulnerabilities for further network access via remote code execution and lateral movement."
Some of the other security flaws exploited by APT28 to pivot inside the breached organizations and gain access to internal email servers include -
CVE-2020-0688 - Microsoft Exchange Validation Key Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
CVE-2020-17144 - Microsoft Exchange Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
The threat actor is also said to have utilized different evasion techniques in an attempt to disguise some components of their operations, including routing brute-force authentication attempts through Tor and commercial VPN services, such as CactusVPN, IPVanish, NordVPN, ProtonVPN, Surfshark, and WorldVPN.
The agencies said the attacks primarily focused on the U.S. and Europe, targeting government and military, defense contractors, energy companies, higher education, logistics companies, law firms, media companies, political consultants or political parties, and think tanks.
"Network managers should adopt and expand usage of multi-factor authentication to help counter the effectiveness of this capability," the advisory noted. "Additional mitigations to ensure strong access controls include time-out and lock-out features, the mandatory use of strong passwords, implementation of a Zero Trust security model that uses additional attributes when determining access, and analytics to detect anomalous accesses."
| Cyber_Attack |
Hacker Earns 1.25 Million Free Frequent Flyer Miles On United Airlines | https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/frequent-flyer-miles-hacker.html | What if you get 1 Million Frequent Flyer Miles for Free? Yes, 1 Million Air Miles…
…I think that would be enough for several first-class trips to Europe or up to 20 round-trips in the United States.
Two Computer Hackers have earned more than 1 Million frequent-flyer miles each from United Airlines for finding multiple security vulnerabilities in the Airline's website.
Back in May this year, Chicago-based 'United Airlines' launched a bug bounty program and invited security researchers and bug hunters to find and report security vulnerabilities in its websites, software, apps and web portals.
Jordan Wiens, a security researcher from Florida and one of two bounty winners, tweeted last week that he earned United Airlines' top reward of 1 Million Miles for finding a flaw that could have allowed a hacker to seize control of one of the airline's websites.
Wiens is not allowed to disclose the technical details regarding the vulnerabilities, but in an email Interview with The Hacker News, Jordan Wiens told that he earned total 1,250,000 Million Frequent Flyer Miles under United Airlines' Bug bounty program.
One Million Miles for reporting a serious Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability in the United Airlines website.
Another 250,000 Frequent Flyer Miles for finding few more vulnerabilities in its website, including an information leakage bug.
Wiens has also confirmed The Hacker News that the flaws he reported to the Airlines were remotely exploitable.
The question here is -- "Could any of these bugs let an attacker to steal users' data or has any ability to directly impact the flight system?"
To which, Wiens replied, "Unfortunately I have no idea what I could have done with it because I didn't actually exercise the flaw and find out what restrictions might have been enabled server-side."
United spokesman Luke Punzenberger said, "We're confident that our systems are secure," and they have patched all the backdoors into their systems before hackers could find and exploit them.
In the Tech World, supporting and running a bug bounty program is a significant step forward for online security, and such initiatives will definitely cost the airlines less than hiring high-profile consultants.
| Vulnerability |
Dirty COW — Critical Linux Kernel Flaw Being Exploited in the Wild | https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/linux-kernel-exploit.html | A nine-year-old critical vulnerability has been discovered in virtually all versions of the Linux operating system and is actively being exploited in the wild.
Dubbed "Dirty COW," the Linux kernel security flaw (CVE-2016-5195) is a mere privilege-escalation vulnerability, but researchers are taking it extremely seriously due to many reasons.
First, it's very easy to develop exploits that work reliably. Secondly, the Dirty COW flaw exists in a section of the Linux kernel, which is a part of virtually every distro of the open-source operating system, including RedHat, Debian, and Ubuntu, released for almost a decade.
And most importantly, the researchers have discovered attack code that indicates the Dirty COW vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild.
Dirty COW potentially allows any installed malicious app to gain administrative (root-level) access to a device and completely hijack it within just 5 seconds.
Earlier this week, Linus Torvalds admitted that 11 years ago he first spotted this issue and also tried to fix it, but then he left it unpatched because at the time it was hard to trigger.
Why is the Flaw called Dirty COW?
The bug, marked as "High" priority, gets its name from the copy-on-write (COW) mechanism in the Linux kernel, which is so broken that any application or malicious program can tamper with read-only root-owned executable files and setuid executables.
"A race condition was found in the way the Linux kernel's memory subsystem handled the copy-on-write (COW) breakage of private read-only memory mappings," reads the website dedicated to Dirty COW.
"An unprivileged local user could use this flaw to gain write access to otherwise read-only memory mappings and thus increase their privileges on the system."
The Dirty COW vulnerability has been present in the Linux kernel since version 2.6.22 in 2007, and is also believed to be present in Android, which is powered by the Linux kernel.
Patch Your Linux-powered Systems Immediately
According to the website, the Linux kernel has been patched, and major vendors such as RedHat, Ubuntu and Debian have already rolled out fixes for their respective Linux distributions.
Organizations and individuals have been urged to install a patch for their Linux-powered systems, phones and gadgets as soon as possible and risk falling victim in order to kill off the Linux kernel-level security flaw affecting nearly every distro of the open-source OS.
The vulnerability was discovered by security researcher Phil Oester, who fund at least one in-the-wild attack exploiting this particular vulnerability. He found the exploit using an HTTP packet capture.
The vulnerability disclosure followed the tradition of branding high-profile security vulnerabilities like Heartbleed, Poodle, FREAK, and GHOST.
The Dirty COW website states:
"It would have been fantastic to eschew this ridiculousness because we all make fun of branded vulnerabilities too, but this was not the right time to make that stand. So we created a website, an online shop, a Twitter account, and used a logo that a professional designer created."
You can find more technical details about the Dirty COW vulnerability and exploit on the bug's official website, RedHat site, and GitHub page.
| Cyber_Attack |
CISA Warns Patched Pulse Secure VPNs Could Still Expose Organizations to Hackers | https://thehackernews.com/2020/04/pulse-secure-vpn-vulnerability.html | The United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) yesterday issued a fresh advisory alerting organizations to change all their Active Directory credentials as a defense against cyberattacks trying to leverage a known remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in Pulse Secure VPN servers—even if they have already patched it.
The warning comes three months after another CISA alert urging users and administrators to patch Pulse Secure VPN environments to thwart attacks exploiting the vulnerability.
"Threat actors who successfully exploited CVE-2019-11510 and stole a victim organization's credentials will still be able to access — and move laterally through — that organization's network after the organization has patched this vulnerability if the organization did not change those stolen credentials," CISA said.
CISA has also released a tool to help network administrators look for any indicators of compromise associated with the flaw.
A Remote Code Execution Flaw
Tracked as CVE-2019-11510, the pre-authentication arbitrary file read vulnerability could allow remote unauthenticated attackers to compromise vulnerable VPN servers and gain access to all active users and their plain-text credentials, and execute arbitrary commands.
The flaw stems from the fact that directory traversal is hard-coded to be allowed if a path contains "dana/html5/acc," thus allowing an attacker to send specially crafted URLs to read sensitive files, such as "/etc/passwd" that contains information about each user on the system.
To address this issue, Pulse Secure released an out-of-band patch on April 24, 2019.
While on August 24, 2019, security intelligence firm Bad Packets was able to discover 14,528 unpatched Pulse Secure servers, a subsequent scan as of last month yielded 2,099 vulnerable endpoints, indicating that a vast majority of organizations have patched their VPN gateways.
Unpatched VPN Servers Become Lucrative Target
The fact that there are still over thousands of unpatched Pulse Secure VPN servers has made them a lucrative target for bad actors to distribute malware.
A report from ClearSky found Iranian state-sponsored hackers using CVE-2019-11510, among others, to penetrate and steal information from target IT and telecommunication companies across the world.
According to an NSA advisory from October 2019, the "exploit code is freely available online via the Metasploit framework, as well as GitHub. Malicious cyber actors are actively using this exploit code."
In a similar alert issued last year, the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) warned that advanced threat groups are exploiting the vulnerability to target government, military, academic, business, and healthcare organizations.
More recently, Travelex, the foreign currency exchange and travel insurance firm, became a victim after cybercriminals planted Sodinokibi (REvil) ransomware on the company's networks via the Pulse Secure vulnerability. Although the ransomware operators demanded a ransom of $6 million (£4.6 million), a Wall Street Journal report last week said it paid $2.3 million in the form of 285 Bitcoin to resolve its problem.
In the face of ongoing attacks, it's recommended that organizations upgrade their Pulse Secure VPN, reset their credentials, and scan for unauthenticated log requests and exploit attempts.
CISA has also suggested removing any unapproved remote access programs and inspecting scheduled tasks for scripts or executables that may allow an attacker to connect to an environment.
For more steps to mitigate the flaw, head to NSA's advisory here.
| Vulnerability |
Several Malicious Typosquatted Python Libraries Found On PyPI Repository | https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/several-malicious-typosquatted-python.html | As many as eight Python packages that were downloaded more than 30,000 times have been removed from the PyPI portal for containing malicious code, once again highlighting how software package repositories are evolving into a popular target for supply chain attacks.
"Lack of moderation and automated security controls in public software repositories allow even inexperienced attackers to use them as a platform to spread malware, whether through typosquatting, dependency confusion, or simple social engineering attacks," JFrog researchers Andrey Polkovnichenko, Omer Kaspi, and Shachar Menashe said Thursday.
PyPI, short for Python Package Index, is the official third-party software repository for Python, with package manager utilities like pip relying on it as the default source for packages and their dependencies.
The Python packages in question, which were found to be obfuscated using Base64 encoding, are listed below -
pytagora (uploaded by leonora123)
pytagora2 (uploaded by leonora123)
noblesse (uploaded by xin1111)
genesisbot (uploaded by xin1111)
are (uploaded by xin1111)
suffer (uploaded by suffer)
noblesse2 (uploaded by suffer)
noblessev2 (uploaded by suffer)
The aforementioned packages could be abused to become an entry point for more sophisticated threats, enabling the attacker to execute remote code on the target machine, amass system information, plunder credit card information and passwords auto-saved in Chrome and Edge browsers, and even steal Discord authentication tokens to impersonate the victim.
PyPI is hardly alone among software package repositories that have emerged as a potential attack surface for intruders, with malicious packages uncovered in npm and RubyGems equipped with capabilities that could potentially disrupt a whole system or serve as a valuable jumping-off point for burrowing deeper into a victim's network.
Last month, Sonatype and Vdoo disclosed typosquatted packages in PyPi that were found to download and execute a payload shell script that, in turn, retrieved a third-party cryptominer such as T-Rex, ubqminer, or PhoenixMiner for mining Ethereum and Ubiq on victim systems.
"The continued discovery of malicious software packages in popular repositories like PyPI is an alarming trend that can lead to widespread supply chain attacks," said JFrog CTO Asaf Karas. "The ability for attackers to use simple obfuscation techniques to introduce malware means developers have to be concerned and vigilant. This is a systemic threat, and it needs to be actively addressed on several layers, both by the maintainers of software repositories and by the developers."
"On the developers' side, preventive measures such as verification of library signatures, and employing automated application security tools that scan for hints of suspicious code included in the project, should be an integral part of any CI/CD pipeline. Automated tools such as these can alert when malicious code paradigms are being used," Karas added.
| Malware |
Anthem Data Breach — 6 Things You Need To Know | https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/anthem-data-breach.html | The Nation's second largest Health insurer company, Anthem, alerted its customers on Wednesday that hackers had stolen the personal information of over 80 Millions of its customers, making it the largest data breach and double the number of payment cards affected by Target data breach occurred in 2013.
The stolen personal information includes residential addresses, birthdays, medical identification numbers, Social Security Numbers, email addresses and some income data belonging to both current and former customers and employees, including its own chief executive.
80 Million is a vast number — it's roughly the populations of California, Texas and Illinois when combined together. So far, there is no evidence whether financial or medical information of the company's customers was compromised, according to a statement given by Anthem's vice president, Kristin Binns.
The health giant, based in Indianapolis, has hired cybersecurity firm FireEye's Mandiant division to work out which customers. Despite these efforts, the company has not yet identified the attacker behind the massive Anthem data breach.
1. WHAT WENT WRONG ?
Now the question rises, What went wrong with the second largest health insurer company that it lead its 80 million customers expose to mega cyber hacks?
Anthem hack could be due to a vulnerability in the healthcare company, and security experts say the stolen information was vulnerable because Anthem did not take proper precautions, such as protecting the data in its computers and servers through encryption, in the same way it protected medical information that was sent or shared outside of the database.
A spokesperson from Anthem says they do not known who is behind the attack, but a number of security consultants have pointed that in the past Chinese hackers have shown their interest in targeting popular healthcare companies.
It is to be estimated that the malicious hackers may have infiltrated the Anthem's networks by making use of a sophisticated malicious software program that gave them access to the login credential of an Anthem employee, thereby breaching 80 million customers.
2. BEWARE!! E-MAIL SCAMS TARGETING ANTHEM CUSTOMERS
As soon as the story broke, cyber criminals started exploiting the latest Anthem data breach in an attempt to persuade people to sign up for bogus credit protection services and provide personal information about themselves.
The insurer company on Friday warned its customers about an e-mail scam targeting former and current customers whose personal information was suspected to have been stolen in the Anthem breach.
Anthem warned about the email scam in a statement saying that the emails appears to come from Anthem and ask recipients to click on the attached link in order to obtain credit monitoring. Do not click on such links and do not provide any information on any website, Anthem advised its customers.
Don't expect any email warnings from the company because the Anthem hack is much severe than what it appears. To avoid fallout from the hackers, Anthem said it will contact its customers only via mail delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. The company will not call members regarding the breach and will not ask for any credit card information or Social Security numbers over the phone or via an email.
3. THIS DATA BREACH COULD LEADS TO OTHER BREACHES
Anthem claimed that the hackers didn't appear to have stolen customers' medical information. However, medical identification numbers were taken, along with Social Security numbers, addresses and email addresses, which could be by cyber crooks used for medical fraud.
Medical identity theft has become a booming business, according to security experts, who warned that the hackers' succeeded in penetrating Anthem's computer systems could use the stolen information to target other health care companies.
Over 90 percent of healthcare organizations reported they have had at least one data breach over the last two years, according to a survey of health care providers published last year by the Ponemon Institute, a privacy and data protection research firm.
4. CALIFORNIA CUSTOMER SUES ANTHEM
A California woman on Thursday accused Anthem of failing to properly secure and protect its customers' personal information, including usernames, birth dates, addresses and social security numbers. She seeks to represent all other customers who have been affected by this massive data breach.
"It appears that Anthem's security system did not involve encrypting Social Security numbers and birth dates –- two of the most valuable pieces of information that a thief can have," Susan Morris said in her complaint filed in federal court in Santa Ana, California.
Among other claims, Morris seeks damages for violations of California's unfair competition and data breach laws, Bloomberg reported. The case is Morris vs. Anthem Inc., 15-cv-00196, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Santa Ana).
5. DEMAND OF LAWS TO BETTER PREVENT BREACHES
After falling for massive data breaches like Target, Home Depot,...and now Anthem hack, there is a need for more systemic changes in the laws in an attempt to prevent big hacks after hackers hit Anthem, the nation's second-largest health insurer.
"We're going to need federal legislation to address security issues to keep these huge hacks from happening," says Waldo Jaquith, who leads U.S. Open Data, which works with the public sector and private companies to better understand, store and share data.
Jaquith suggests setting minimal security requirements into the law — such as requirement of much stricter passwords and customer authentication. But, until there are more systemic changes, consumers are left quite helpless.
6. HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF AFTER BREACH
The hack affected a wide array of Anthem brands, including Anthem Blue Cross; Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield; Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia; Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield; Amerigroup; Caremore; Unicare; Healthlink; and DeCare. So, if you have one of these plan, your personal data may have been taken by cyber crooks.
If you are a one of those affected customers, you will have to remain vigilant against fraud for the rest of your lives, because the risk of identity theft isn't short term, like in case of credit cards fraud. You may follow the following steps to protect yourself:
Monitor Your Accounts - Watch out if someone using your information don't ever try to take over or transfer money out of your existing accounts. Don't forget that thieves with stolen info can get through your security questions, including the last 4 digits of your social and street address. Also, watch for any unauthorized activity or transfers on your current financial accounts, those affected in the breach.
Sign Up for Credit Alerts and Identity Theft Protection for Free - The insurer company is offering free credit monitoring and identity protection services to all of its affected customers. So, you must sign up now, as these services will keep an eye on every unauthorised activities and send you alerts when someone else tries to use your identity. You can get further information on these measures at AnthemFacts.com.
File Your Taxes Early - According to Paige Hanson, Educational Programs Manager for LifeLock, an identity theft monitoring service, it only takes two pieces of information for a cyber thief to hook your tax refund by filing your taxes early and claiming it for themselves, and the data in the breach contained both. So, in order to avoid any such problems, file your taxes as early as possible.
Get Password Manager and Use Two Factor Authentication - The advice is common for all affected by data breaches — change your password and use best password manager to make sure you use a complex one, and don't use the same password or username across various websites. Also activate two-factor authentication for an extra layer of protection beyond your password.
Stay Vigilant - The last and foremost thing to protect against the breach is to stay vigilant, as nobody knows when or where your stolen identities will be used. So, affected consumers will simply have to stay mindful forever.
"Your Social Security number is not going to change," said Gorup. "This is going to stick with you for life."
In case for any queries about Anthem data breach, the company has set up a dedicated website and a toll-free number (1-877-263-7995) for customers to access updates and ask questions related to the hack.
| Vulnerability |
[eBook] 7 Signs You Might Need a New Detection and Response Tool | https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/ebook-7-signs-you-might-need-new.html | It's natural to get complacent with the status quo when things seem to be working. The familiar is comfortable, and even if something better comes along, it brings with it many unknowns.
In cybersecurity, this tendency is countered by the fast pace of innovation and how quickly technology becomes obsolete, often overnight.
This combination usually results in one of two things – organizations make less than ideal choices about the software and tools they're adding, or security leaders simply cannot stay abreast of new developments and opt to stay put with their existing stack.
The problem is that once you let one update pass you by, you're suddenly miles behind. A new eBook from XDR provider Cynet (download here) offers insights into factors that are clear signs organizations need to upgrade their detection and response tools to stay with the times.
The eBook highlights several factors and questions that companies can ask themselves to determine whether they are okay with the level of security they have, or if they should upgrade their detection and response capabilities.
Looking for signs
There's a variety of reasons why an organization's detection and response tools might need a refresh, ranging from the critical to the less obvious.
One of the first signs, however, is clear for most organizations – the number of alerts they must sift through daily.
Today's security stacks produce thousands of alerts daily, forcing many teams to pick and choose which they can investigate and for how long. As a result, critical alerts are prioritized, but they only make up a small percentage of the total amount.
Ideally, an organization should explore every alert – even the false positives. The inability to cope with alerts, or simply reduce the number of alerts, is a clear indicator that organizations should upgrade their security stack.
The eBook also takes aim at security stacks and tools that require dozens of add-ons and extensions to operate adequately.
For many organizations, installing and setting up a new EDR includes the process of finding the extensions that offer the tools necessary. Even worse, in some cases, add-ons are required simply to provide baseline services. On the other hand, the eBook argues, XDRs come set up out of the box to provide all the tools and features necessary to offer full functionality.
Some of the other signs you might need a new detection and response tool include:
If only one person knows how to operate and manage an organization's EDR. Large security stacks have steep learning curves, and most organizations don't have the skills or resources to devote to training a whole team. So, a single person gets appointed to manage and orchestrate the security strategy. This is problematic for several reasons and is a key indicator a simplified tool such as an XDR can help.
If your existing EDR suddenly claims to have upgraded to XDR, without any notable changes. A side effect of a rapidly evolving industry is that every vendor wants to hop on the next big thing – in this case, XDR. Therefore, many vendors will claim to offer XDR or "XDR-like" capabilities without actually offering a noticeable improvement or even added functionality.
If you look longingly at deception technology, but can't afford it. Some tools are still not quite necessities, but they're valuable assets to have. The problem, as is the case with deception technology, is that it's costly and complicated to set up. On the other hand, a solution that has it included natively offers significant benefits.
You can learn more about indicators of whether you need a new detection and response tool here.
| Malware |
Apple Releases Urgent 0-Day Bug Patch for Mac, iPhone and iPad Devices | https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/apple-releases-urgent-0-day-bug-patch.html | Apple on Monday rolled out an urgent security update for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS to address a zero-day flaw that it said may have been actively exploited, making it the thirteenth such vulnerability Apple has patched since the start of this year.
The updates, which arrive less than a week after the company released iOS 14.7, iPadOS 14.7, and macOS Big Sur 11.5 to the public, fixes a memory corruption issue (CVE-2021-30807) in the IOMobileFrameBuffer component, a kernel extension for managing the screen framebuffer, that could be abused to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges.
The company said it addressed the issue with improved memory handling, noting it's "aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited." As is typically the case, additional details about the flaw have not been disclosed to prevent the weaponization of the vulnerability for additional attacks. Apple credited an anonymous researcher for discovering and reporting the vulnerability.
The timing of the update also raises questions about whether the zero-day had any role in compromising iPhones using NSO Group's Pegasus software, which has become the focus of a series of investigative reports that have exposed how the spyware tool turned mobile phones of journalists, human rights activists, and others into portable surveillance devices, granting complete access to sensitive information stored in them.
CVE-2021-30807 is also the thirteenth zero-day vulnerability addressed by Apple this year alone, including —
CVE-2021-1782 (Kernel) - A malicious application may be able to elevate privileges
CVE-2021-1870 (WebKit) - A remote attacker may be able to cause arbitrary code execution
CVE-2021-1871 (WebKit) - A remote attacker may be able to cause arbitrary code execution
CVE-2021-1879 (WebKit) - Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to universal cross-site scripting
CVE-2021-30657 (System Preferences) - A malicious application may bypass Gatekeeper checks
CVE-2021-30661 (WebKit Storage) - Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution
CVE-2021-30663 (WebKit) - Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution
CVE-2021-30665 (WebKit) - Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution
CVE-2021-30666 (WebKit) - Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution
CVE-2021-30713 (TCC framework) - A malicious application may be able to bypass Privacy preferences
CVE-2021-30761 (WebKit) - Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution
CVE-2021-30762 (WebKit) - Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution
Given the public availability of a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit, it's highly recommended that users move quickly to update their devices to the latest version to mitigate the risk associated with the flaw.
| Vulnerability |
REvil Ransomware Gang Mysteriously Disappears After High-Profile Attacks | https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/revil-ransomware-gang-mysteriously.html | REvil, the infamous ransomware cartel behind some of the biggest cyberattacks targeting JBS and Kaseya, has mysteriously disappeared from the dark web, leading to speculations that the criminal enterprise may have been taken down.
Multiple darknet and clearnet sites maintained by the Russia-linked cybercrime syndicate, including the data leak, extortion, and payment portals, remained inaccessible, displaying an error message "Onionsite not found."
The group's Tor network infrastructure on the dark web consists of one data leak blog site and 22 data hosting sites. It's not immediately clear what prompted the infrastructure to be knocked offline.
REvil is one of the most prolific ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) groups that first appeared on the threat landscape in April 2019. It's an evolution of the GandCrab ransomware, which hit the underground markets in early 2018.
"If REvil has been permanently disrupted, it'll mark the end of a group which has been responsible for >360 attacks on the U.S. public and private sectors this year alone," Emsisoft's Brett Callow tweeted.
The sudden development comes close on the heels of a wide-scale supply chain ransomware attack aimed at technology services provider Kaseya, for which REvil (aka Sodinokibi) took responsibility for and demanded a $70 million ransom to unlock access to encrypted systems in exchange for a universal decryption key that would unlock all victims data.
The disastrous attack saw the ransomware gang encrypting approximately 60 managed service providers (MSPs) and over 1,500 downstream businesses using a zero-day vulnerability in the Kaseya VSA remote management software. In late May, REvil also masterminded the attack on the world's largest meat producer JBS, which ended up paying $11 million to the extortionists to recover from the incident.
The outage also coincides with U.S. President Joe Biden's phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, pressing the latter to take steps to disrupt ransomware groups operating in the country, while warning of retaliatory action to defend critical infrastructure.
"The situation is still unfolding, but evidence suggests REvil has suffered a planned, concurrent takedown of their infrastructure, either by the operators themselves or via industry or law enforcement action," FireEye Mandiant's John Hultquist told CNBC.
It appears that REvil's Happy Blog was taken offline around 1 AM EST on Tuesday, with vx-underground noting that the group's public-facing representative, Unknown, has not posted on popular hacking forums such as Exploit and XSS since July 8.
Subsequently, a representative for LockBit ransomware posted to the XSS Russian-speaking hacking forum that REvil's attack infrastructure received a government legal request, causing the servers to be dismantled. "REvil is banned from XSS," vx-underground later added.
It's not uncommon for ransomware groups to go under the ground following highly publicized incidents. After the DarkSide gang targeted Colonial Pipeline in May, the operators announced plans to wind up its RaaS affiliate program for good, claiming that its servers had been seized by an unknown law enforcement agency, raising questions as to whether the group actually retired, or rebranded under a new name.
This theory was validated a few weeks later when the U.S. Department of Justice revealed last month that it was able to recover most of the money paid by Colonial Pipeline to the DarkSide group through an analysis of the bitcoin trails.
REvil's unexplained shutdown, in a similar fashion, may as well be a case of planned retirement, or a temporary setback, forcing it to seemingly disband only to eventually reassemble under a new identity so as to attract less attention, or a consequence of increased international scrutiny in the wake of the global ransomware crisis.
If it indeed turns out that the group has permanently shuttered operations, the move is bound to leave the group's targets in the lurch, with no viable means to negotiate ransoms and get hold of the decryption keys necessary to regain control of their systems, thus permanently locking them out of their data.
"I don't know what this means, but regardless, I'm happy!" tweeted Katie Nickels, director of intelligence at Red Canary. "If it's a government takedown - awesome, they're taking action. If the actors voluntarily went quiet - excellent, maybe they're scared."
| Malware |
Android vulnerability allows hackers to modify apps without breaking signatures | https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/android-vulnerability-allows-hackers-to.html | Almost all Android handsets are vulnerable to a flaw that could allow hackers to seize control of a device to make calls, send texts, or build a mobile botnet, has been uncovered by Bluebox Security .i.e almost 900 million Android devices globally.
Or simply, The Flaw allow hackers to modify any legitimate and digitally signed application in order to transform it into a Trojan program that can be used to steal data or take control of the OS.
When an application is installed and a sandbox is created for it, Android records the application's digital signature and all subsequent updates for that application need to match its signature in order to verify that they came from the same author and anything without the signature certificate won't install or run on a user's device.
The vulnerability has existed since at least Android 1.6, which means that it potentially affects any Android device released during the last four years. Samsung's flagship Galaxy S4 has already been patched, so it is likely that manufacturers have quietly sprung into action.
Vulnerability is particularly dangerous because of the way many big-name companies have granted Android devices running on their networks additional privileges. After bypassing Android's app-signing model to take the place of such an app, rogue malware can obtain full access to Android system and all applications (and their data) currently installed.
"Depending on the type of application, a hacker can exploit the vulnerability for anything from data theft to creation of a mobile botnet," said Bluebox on the potential risks.
Bluebox disclosed the vulnerability to Google in February, but said that it was up to individual handset manufacturers to issue patches. Google hasn't responded to a request for comment.
However, Google has blocked distribution of apps exploiting the flaw in Google Play, although if user to is tricked into manually installing a malicious update for an app originally installed through Google Play, the app will be replaced and the new version will no longer interact with the app store.
| Vulnerability |
Cyber Criminals Selling Millions of U.S military email addresses | https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/cyber-criminals-selling-millions-of-us.html | Cyber Criminals Selling Millions of U.S military email addresses
Web based underground market service currently selling Millions of harvested U.S government and U.S military harvested emails addresses to potential spammers, and find out just how easy it is to purchase that kind of data within the cyber crime ecosystem.
Cyber criminals are getting more sophisticated in their scams and phishing schemes, which are designed to steal personal data and financial information. Spammers and virus creators are motivated by money and backed by organized crime on a global scale. They are also launching massive attacks on anti-spam organizations in an attempt to bring them down.
In respect to targeted malware attacks, the service is currently offering 2.462.935 U.S government email addresses, and another 2.178.000 U.S military email addresses. A Screenshot of the inventory of harvested emails currently offered for sale:
Spammers buy lists from brokers that continuously harvest email addresses from newsgroups, chat rooms, web sites, Internet directories, and more. Spammers also run dictionary attacks, throwing billions of combinations of words and numbers at an email database to find valid address combinations.
People are being tricked by email phishing scams that masquerade as legitimate business communications from their bank, mortgage provider, credit card company, PayPal, or eBay. Other popular spam-based Internet scams include foreign lotteries, investment schemes, chain letters, credit repair offers, advance-fee loan deals, check overpayment cons, and work-at-home ploys.
U.S government and U.S military users whose emails have been exposed are advised to be extra vigilant for potential targeted malware attacks enticing them into downloading and executing a malicious attachment, or attempting to trick them into clicking on a client-side exploits serving link found in the emails.
[Source]
| Malware |
ZeuS Trojan variant Targets Salesforce accounts and SaaS Applications | https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/Salesforce-malware-attack-zeus-trojan.html | Zeus, a financially aimed Banking Trojan that comes in many different forms and flavors, is capable to steal users' online-banking credentials once installed. This time, an infamous Zeus Trojan has turned out to be a more sophisticated piece of malware that uses web-crawling action.
Instead of going after Banking credentials and performing malicious keystroke logging, a new variant of Zeus Trojan focuses on Software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications for the purpose of obtaining access to proprietary data or code.
The SaaS Security firm vendor Adallom, detected a targeted malware attack campaign against a Salesforce.com customer, which began as an attack on an employee's home computer. Adallom found that the new variant had web crawling capabilities that were used to grab sensitive business data from that customer's CRM instance.
The Security firm noticed the attack when they saw about 2GB of data been downloaded to the victim's computer in less than 10 minutes. Furthermore, while Zeus usually hijacks the user session and performs wire transactions, this variant crawled the site and created a real time copy of the user's Salesforce.com instance that contained all the information from the company account.
"This looks like a targeted attack against the company, cleverly targeting the employee home instead of the enterprise – thus bypassing the company controls. This was probably just the first step, using the Zeus Web inject capabilities they could have used the same tactics as in the banking sites attacks and ask the user to enter more information regarding his company credentials or send out messages in his name," says Ami Luttwak, co-founder and CTO of Adallom.
Zeus Trojan is one of the most popular family of banking Trojan. Also in 2012, the FBI warned us about the 'GameOver' banking Trojan, a variant of Zeus financial malware that spreads via phishing emails.
GameOver 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.
At the beginning of this year, Security researcher Gary Warner explains the behavior of the new variant of GameOver Zeus malware that uses Encryption to bypass perimeter security, in a blog post.
The attackers now bypassing traditional security measures and putting Zeus to use it against Salesforce.com and possibly other SaaS applications in a type of attack that Adallom refers to as "land-mining" and "rolladexing" to grab loads of business data and customer information.
The Adallom Labs team has yet to figure out exactly how these machines were infected and who are behind the cyber attack, so the matter is still being investigated by them.
| Malware |
Everything You Need to Know About Evolving Threat of Ransomware | https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/everything-you-need-to-know-about.html | The cybersecurity world is constantly evolving to new forms of threats and vulnerabilities. But ransomware proves to be a different animal—most destructive, persistent, notoriously challenging to prevent, and is showing no signs of slowing down.
Falling victim to a ransomware attack can cause significant data loss, data breach, operational downtime, costly recovery, legal consequences, and reputational damage.
In this story, we have covered everything you need to know about ransomware and how it works.
What is ransomware?
Ransomware is a malicious program that gains control over the infected device, encrypts files, and blocks user access to the data or a system until a sum of money, or ransom, is paid.
Crooks' scheme includes a ransom note—with amount and instructions on how to pay a ransom in return for the decryption key—or direct communication with the victim.
While ransomware impacts businesses and institutions of every size and type, attackers often target healthcare, education, IT, government, and finance sectors with deeper pockets—causing damages ranging from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars.
Ransomware attacks started picking up in 2012, and since then, it has become the most pervasive cyber-attacks across the world.
For instance, HelloKitty ransomware hit Polish video game developer CD Projekt Red last week with quite a popular tactic, i.e., attackers threatened the company to leak the source code of games, including Cyberpunk 2077, Witcher 3, Gwent, and along with confidential files in the company.
And it's actually happened! After CD Projekt announced that they would not be paying the ransom, attackers created an auction for the stolen data on a hacker forum.
And it isn't the only example. Ransomware has always been one of the most popular kinds of malicious samples uploaded in malware analysis sandbox ANY.RUN. Over 124,00 interactive sessions with ransomware were analyzed online only in 2020.
From a locker to the enterprise
One of the ways to protect from attacks is awareness. We believe it is a must for enterprise executives and employees to understand this type of threat.
In this article, we'll take a look at the history of ransomware:
The first ransomware
The first known ransomware attack was carried out in 1989 by an AIDS researcher, Joseph Popp, who distributed malicious 20,000 floppy disks to AIDS researchers spanning more than 90 countries, claiming that the disks contained a survey program. Since then, the ransomware threat has evolved a lot and acquired more features.
Locker ransomware
In 2007, Locker ransomware, a new category of ransomware malware, appeared that does not encrypt files; instead, it locks the victim out of their device, preventing them from using it.
Similar to this, WinLock demanded a $10 ransom for the unlocking code. Later, Citadel, Lyposit, and Reveton worm controlled a screen with a fine message from a fake law enforcement agency.
This typically takes the form of locking the computer's or device's user interface and then asking the user to pay a fee to restore access to it.
Scareware
In later years, attackers changed their strategy to capitalize on fear by spreading faking applications and antivirus (AV) programs. The attack involves a pop-up message displayed to victims saying that their computers have been infected with viruses. It lures victims to a website where they're asked for money to pay for software to fix the problem. Everything looked trustworthy: logos, color schemes, and other copyrighted materials.
From that moment, criminals understood that it was much easier to compromise several websites, focus on phishing, and get the whole process automated.
Crypto ransomware
In 2013, CryptoLocker emerged as the first cryptographic malware that typically arrives as an email attachment. The Gameover ZeuS botnet was responsible for these attacks. CryptoLocker encrypts files, and after that, a bitcoin payment was required to unlock them.
If the ransom wasn't received in 3 days, the ransom doubled. CryptorBit, CryptoDefense, CryptoWall, WannaCry enlarged decoy variations and even used system weaknesses to infect computers.
The latest step in that evolution is the arrival of ransomware-as-a-service, which first appeared in 2015 with the Tox toolkit launch. It gave would-be cybercriminals the option to develop custom ransomware tools with advanced evasion capabilities.
Enterprise ransomware
Ransomware attackers leveled up and went to the enterprise stage. They preferred to deal with large organizations and scare them of a possible outbreak.
For example, a target got an email with a threat of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. To avoid it, victims needed to pay a ransom.
One more case is the data compromise ransom. A criminal threatens a target to exploit compromised information to the public unless a ransom is paid. The following tactic is effective on the enterprise level, as companies don't want to put their reputation at stake.
Now it's clear that malware will continue to evolve. And maybe it will acquire hybrid attacks, including other malware families.
Attack in details
As we now know the history and types of ransomware, now it's time to understand how it works.
Deployment: In the first step, attackers distribute essential components used to infect, encrypt, or lock the system, downloaded without the user's knowledge, using phishing, or after exploiting targeted system flaws.
Installation: When the payload is downloaded, the next step is infection. The malware drops a small file that is often capable of defense evasion. The ransomware executes and attempts to gain persistence on the infected system by putting itself to autorun the registry keys, allowing remote attackers to control the system.
Command-and-Control: The malware then connects to the attackers' command and control (C2) server to receive instructions and, primarily, to deposit the asymmetric private encryption key out of the victim's reach.
Destruction: Once files get encrypted, the malware deletes original copies on the system, and the only way to restore them is to decrypt encoded files.
Extortion: Here come ransom notes. The victim gets to know that his data is compromised. The payment range varies according to the type of target. To confuse and scare a victim, attackers may delete several files from the computer. However, if a user pays the ransom, it isn't a guarantee that the information will be restored or ransomware itself will be deleted.
Popular families and operators
Several types of malware are famous in the ransomware world. Let's look through them and talk about popular operators that stand out in malware history:
1) GandCrab ransomware is one of the most notorious ransomware releases in the last few years that amassed nearly $2 billion in payments from its victims.
Believed to be a product of a Russian hacker group, GandCrab was discovered in 2018 as a part of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) sold to other cybercriminals.
Though GandCrab announced "retirement" in 2019, some researchers claim that it returned with a new strain, called Sodinokibi, with a similar codebase. Sodinokibi targets Microsoft Windows systems and encrypts all files except configuration files.
2) Next, Maze ransomware, which made headlines in the last two years, is known for releasing stolen data to the public if the victim does not pay to decrypt it.
It was the first ransomware attack that combined data encryption with information theft. Moreover, they threatened to make the data public if the ransom was not paid. When the COVID-19 started, Maze announced that they would leave hospitals alone. But later, they broke that promise as well.
In 2020 Maze announced they shut down its operations. But it's more likely that they just moved to another malware.
3) Netwalker used process hollowing and code obfuscation to target corporate victims. But in January 2021, law enforcement agencies teamed up against Netwalker and took over domains in a dark web used by malware actors.
4) Wannacry spreads autonomously from computer to computer using EternalBlue, an exploit supposedly developed by the NSA and then stolen by hackers.
It is the most uploaded type of ransomware in ANY.RUN service in 2020. It hit top malware with 1930 tasks. You can investigate them in the public submission library, search by the "wannacry" tag.
5) Avaddon's malspam usually contains the only smiley to lure users into downloading the attachment. The malware also checks the user's locale before infecting. If it is Russian or Cherokee, Avaddon doesn't encrypt systems.
6) Babuk is a new malware targeting enterprises in 2021. Babuk comprises secure encryption that makes it impossible to restore files for free.
Targets of ransomware attacks
There are several reasons attackers first choose what kind of organizations they want to target with ransomware:
Easy to evade defense. Universities, small companies that have small security teams are an easy target. File sharing and an extensive database make the penetration simple for attackers.
Possibility of a quick payment. Some organizations are forced to pay a ransom quickly. Government agencies or medical facilities often need immediate access to their data. Law firms and other organizations with sensitive data usually want to keep a compromise a secret.
And some ransomware spreads automatically, and anyone can become its victim.
The Rapid Growth of Ransomware
The main reason why this type of malware has become successful is the attacks that bring results to cybercriminals. Markets let crooks buy advanced ransomware for making money.
Malware authors provide several ways to pack the ransomware. Malicious software encrypts systems quickly and stealthily. As soon as the ransom is received, it is no challenge to cover the tracks. These points lead to a significant increase.
Now criminals go bald and expect to get hundreds or thousands of dollars as companies don't want to risk data loss and outages.
Ransomware distribution methods
Here are several ways of how ransomware spreads:
Email (spam)
Watering Hole attack
Malvertising
Exploit kits
USB and removable media
Ransomware as a service
Zero days
Ransomware analysis in ANY.RUN
Let's investigate a sample of ransomware together.
Here is a task with Sodinokibi malware. Thanks to ANY.RUN interactivity, we can follow the user's path:
First of all, we wait for the malicious program to finish file-encrypting on the disc. The distinguishable feature of Sodinokibi is the desktop wallpaper with text.
Then we open a text file on the desktop. Yes, we can interact with files and folders in the virtual Machine during the task execution.
There we can see instructions with the URL address. We can copy it and open it in the browser. On the new page, we need to enter the key; each key is unique for every infected Machine.
There is ours in the text file so that we can enter it. And then a page with the sum of the ransom payment appears and a countdown. Finally, we open the file with an image for test decryption and open it.
Prevention measures
2021 started with arrests of ransomware gangs. The Egregor hacker group has been taken down by French and Ukrainian police last week.
That is a good tendency that law enforcement agencies keep defeating malware actors. However, we need to be cautious and try to stop attacks, too.
To protect against ransomware, companies should have an elaborate plan against malware, including backup data. Since ransomware is very difficult to detect and fight, different protection mechanisms should be used.
ANY.RUN is one of them that helps to identify malware early and prevent infections. Besides that, the most important protection is the training of staff. They need to avoid any suspicious links or files. Employees who know that ransomware exists and how it works can detect such attacks.
| Cyber_Attack |
Cyber Attack on The Iranian Oil Ministry's Computer Network | https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/cyber-attack-on-iranian-oil-ministrys.html | Cyber Attack on The Iranian Oil Ministry's Computer Network
The Iranian oil ministry's computer network came under attack from hackers and a computer virus, prompting the Islamic Republic to disconnect the country's main oil export terminal from the internet as a preventative measure, a semiofficial news agency reported on Monday.
The Mehr News Agency, which is a semi-official arm of the Iranian government, reported Monday that the country's principal oil terminal on Kharg Island was disconnected from the Internet as part of the response to the attacks. Email systems associated with the targets were also pulled offline.
Iranian officials said the virus attack, which began in earnest Sunday afternoon, had not affected oil production or exports, since the industry was still primarily mechanical and does not rely on the Internet. Officials said they were disconnecting the oil terminals and possibly some other installations in an effort to combat the virus.
Cyberattacks by well-resourced, highly capable and relentless, usually state-sponsored attackers so called advanced persistent threats are growing. The best known example is Stuxnet, which was aimed at Iran's nuclear centrifuges and is widely believed to have been developed by the US or Israel, neither of which have confirmed their involvement.
The Iranian Students News Agency said that the virus, called "wiper" by its creator, had successfully erased information on hard disks at the Oil Ministry's headquarters, a hulking black glass skyscraper on Taleghani Street in central Tehran.
Hamdullah Mohammadnejad, the head of civil defence at the oil ministry, was reported as saying Iranian authorities had set up a crisis unit and were working out how to neutralise the attacks.
| Malware |
Flaw in Intel Ethernet controller exposes to 'packet of death' attack | https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/flaw-in-intel-ethernet-controller.html | The hardware qualification is a very important issue, recent vulnerabilities discovered in network appliances of various manufacturer have alerted security community once again on the necessity to validate the hardware especially for large consume product.
The last news is related to a vulnerability related to the Intel's 82574L Ethernet controller that expose equipment to risk of "packet of death." Attack.
Star2Star's chief technology officer Kristian Kielhofner identified the cause of the problems after customers experienced random crashes. Researchers at Star2Star after the analysis of lot traffic identified the cause of the problem in the format of a packet managed by a particular VoIP manufacturer.
But as yet it is unclear how widespread the problem is or how other Intel hardware is affected.
Kielhofner, wrote: "The system and Ethernet interfaces would appear fine," "and then after a random amount of traffic the interface would report a hardware error (lost communication with PHY) and lose link. Literally the link lights on the switch and interface would go out. It was dead."
"Nothing but a power cycle would bring it back. Attempting to reload the kernel module or reboot the machine would result in a PCI scan error. The interface was dead until the machine was physically powered down and powered back on. In many cases, for our customers, this meant a truck roll."
"Problem packets had just the right Call-ID, tags, and branches to cause the '2' in the ptime to line up with 0x47f."
The problem is very insidious, Kielhofner's team was able to create packets and target them at particular systems.
"With a modified HTTP server configured to generate the data at byte value (based on headers, host, etc.) you could easily configure an HTTP 200 response to contain the packet of death - and kill client machines behind firewalls!"
Kielhofner has posted a test page that allows system admins to test to see if their devices are vulnerable, meantime his team is working with Intel to produce a fix for the bug.
Update: Intel has responded with an expanded technical explanation of the issue. Intel was made aware of this issue in September 2012 by the blogs author.
Douglas Boom from Intel said in a blog post, "Intel root caused the issue to the specific vendor's mother board design where an incorrect EEPROM image was programmed during manufacturing. We communicated the findings and recommended corrections to the motherboard manufacturer."
"It is Intel's belief that this is an implementation issue isolated to a specific manufacturer, not a design problem with the Intel 82574L Gigabit Ethernet controller."
Whereas,Kristian Kielhofner said, "However, I still don't believe this issue is completely isolated to this specific instance and one motherboard manufacturer. For one, I have received at least two confirmed reports from people who were able to reproduce this issue - my "packet of death" shutting down 82574L hardware from different motherboard manufacturers."
| Vulnerability |
Critical Flaw Hits Popular Windows Apps Built With Electron JS Framework | https://thehackernews.com/2018/01/electron-js-hacking.html | A critical remote code execution vulnerability has been reported in Electron—a popular web application framework that powers thousands of widely-used desktop applications including Skype, Signal, Wordpress and Slack—that allows for remote code execution.
Electron is an open-source framework that is based on Node.js and Chromium Engine and allows app developers to build cross-platform native desktop applications for Windows, macOS and Linux, without knowledge of programming languages used for each platform.
The vulnerability, assigned as the number CVE-2018-1000006, affects only those apps that run on Microsoft Windows and register themselves as the default handler for a protocol like myapp://.
"Such apps can be affected regardless of how the protocol is registered, e.g. using native code, the Windows registry, or Electron's app.setAsDefaultProtocolClient API," Electron says in an advisory published Monday.
The Electron team has also confirmed that applications designed for Apple's macOS and Linux are not vulnerable to this issue, and neither those (including for Windows) that do not register themselves as the default handler for a protocol like myapp://.
The Electron developers have already released two new versions of their framework, i.e. 1.8.2-beta.4, 1.7.11, and 1.6.16 to address this critical vulnerability.
"If for some reason you are unable to upgrade your Electron version, you can append—as the last argument when calling app.setAsDefaultProtocolClient, which prevents Chromium from parsing further options," the company says.
End users can do nothing about this vulnerability; instead, developers using Electron JS framework have to upgrade their applications immediately to protect their user base.
Much details of the remote code execution vulnerability have not been disclosed yet, neither the advisory named any of the vulnerable apps (that make themselves the default protocol handler) for security reason.
We will update you as soon as any details about the flaw come out.
| Vulnerability |
Facebook 'Watch naked video of friends' malware scam infects 2 million people | https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/facebook-watch-naked-video-of-friends.html | We have seen a lot of Facebook malware and virus infections spreading through friends list, and this time a new clickjacking scam campaign is going viral on Facebook.
Hackers spam Facebook timeline with a friend's picture and "See (Friend)'s naked video," or "(Friend Name's) Private Video."
The Picture appears to be uploaded by a friend and definitely, you might want to see some of your Facebook friends naked, But Beware! If you get curious and click, you will be redirected to a malicious website reports that your Flash Player is not working properly and needs to be re-installed.
But in actuality it will install a malware in your system and once approved, several disguised thing can happen to you. It further installs a malicious browser extension to spread the scam and steal users' photos.
"When the link is clicked, users are sent to a very realistic-looking mockup of a YouTube page, where the hackers will try to immediately install the Malware Trojan." wltx reports.
So, Don't Click it! According to the report, 2 million Facebook users are already infected with the same malware campaign and unknowingly flood their friend's timeline will same campaign. Clicking on the message will automatically publish the same link on the victims Facebook wall potentially allowing friends to click on it.
Malware often takes advantage of the fact that you trust your friends. So, keep an eye on the links and messages from your friends, and if in doubt, ask them they actually sent you something or not.
The recent malware attacks are just a few examples of the dangers of using the social network Facebook. Stay safe by keeping your browser up-to-date and install operating system updates when they are released. Please ensure you share this news with your Facebook friends to make all of them aware of it.
| Malware |
Necurs Rootkit infect 83,427 machines in November | https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/necurs-rootkit-infect-83427-machines-in.html | Rootkit named as "Necurs" infect 83,427 unique machines during the month of November 2012. It is a multi-purpose rootkits capable of posing a threat to both 32 and 64-bit Windows systems. Distributed via drive-by download on the websites that host the BlackHole exploit kit.
Like other rootkits it is able to hide itself from detection and also capable of downloading additional malware from outside. Attackers can maintain remote access to a machine this way in order to monitor activity, send spam or install scareware.
Rootkit also stop security applications from functioning and hence no detection. Microsoft list this as Trojan:Win32/Necurs.
Trojan:Win32/Necurs is a family of malware that work together to download additional malware and enable backdoor access and control of your computer. The malware can be installed on its own or alongside rogue security software, such as Rogue:Win32/Winwebsec.
The malware downloads itself into the folder "%windir%\Installer\", where is a unique number that identifies your computer, for example "%windir%\Installer\{df3d9e18-342c-8c07-8dab-13e76d8b4322}".
Moreover, Some variants of Trojan:Win32/Necurs can inject code into all running processes. The injected code is known as a "dead byte"; certain system processes will cause your computer to restart if they are injected with this code.
Strong anti-security features are provided by the Necurs driver. The driver has a very clear goal: protecting every Necurs component from being removed.
This example shows that malicious software is growing more sophisticated and is starting to include various components that serve individual purposes. These threats may target various versions of operating systems or even different software platforms.
| Malware |
Microsoft set to deliver Patches for three Critical flaws, but no patch for Office Zero-day vulnerability | https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/microsoft-set-to-deliver-patches-for.html | Microsoft has released advanced notification for the November 2013 security updates that are scheduled to be released on November 12, 2013.
The company plans to deliver eight security bulletins for Windows 8.1, three of them are rated critical and five are important. But there's no relief in sight for a zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2013-3906) in how Office handles .TIFF graphics files.
The bulletins listed in Microsoft's advanced notification as critical are for remote code execution vulnerabilities in Windows operating system and the remaining vulnerabilities listed as important are said to be remote code execution, elevation of privilege, information disclosure and denial of service flaws affecting Windows operating system, as well as Microsoft Office.
A malicious zero day attack capable of hijacking your PC via a vulnerability found in Windows, Office, and Lync is being exploited more widely than originally thought. Some new reports of the security researchers at Fire Eye and Symantec claim that malware groups are actively using the TIFF flaw to hack into computers.
The majority of the exploits detected by Microsoft, Fire Eye, and Symantec have occurred in the Middle East and Asia.
Microsoft also explains that the fix for Security Advisory 2896666 could come at any time, which means it could release even before next Tuesday. However, the current Fix It solution is still the proposed deterrent at this point.
| Vulnerability |
Imperva Breach Exposes WAF Customers' Data, Including SSL Certs, API Keys | https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/imperva-waf-breach.html | Imperva, one of the leading cybersecurity startups that helps businesses protect critical data and applications from cyberattacks, has suffered a data breach that has exposed sensitive information for some of its customers, the company revealed today.
The security breach particularly affects customers of Imperva's Cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF) product, formerly known as Incapsula, a security-focused CDN service known for its DDoS mitigation and web application security features that protect websites from malicious activities.
In a blog post published today, Imperva CEO Chris Hylen revealed that the company learned about the incident on August 20, 2019, only after someone informed it about the data exposure that "impacts a subset of customers of its Cloud WAF product who had accounts through September 15, 2017."
The exposed data includes email addresses and hashed and salted passwords for all Cloud WAF customers who registered before 15th September 2017, as well as API keys and customer-provided SSL certificates for a subset of users.
"We activated our internal data security response team and protocol, and continue to investigate with the full capacity of our resources how this exposure occurred," the company says.
"We have informed the appropriate global regulatory agencies. We have engaged outside forensic experts."
The company has not yet revealed how the Cloud WAF customers' data got leaked, whether its servers were compromised or if it was accidentally left unsecured in a misconfigured database on the Internet.
However, Imperva is still investigating the incident, and the company has ensured that it is informing all impacted customers directly and is also taking additional measures to scale up its security.
"We profoundly regret that this incident occurred and will continue to share updates going forward. In addition, we will share learnings and new best practices that may come from our investigation and enhanced security measures with the broader industry," the company says.
Cloud WAF users are recommended to change their account passwords, implement Single Sign-On (SSO), enable two-factor authentication (2FA), generate and upload new SSL certificate, and reset their API keys.
| Data_Breaches |
Hackers Exploiting Microsoft Servers to Mine Monero - Makes $63,000 In 3 Months | https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/windows-monero-miners.html | Mining cryptocurrencies can be a costly investment as it takes a monstrous amount of computing power, and thus hackers have started using malware that steals computing resources of computers it hijacks to make lots of dollars in digital currency.
Security researchers at security firm ESET have spotted one such malware that infected hundreds of Windows web servers with a malicious cryptocurrency miner and helped cybercriminals made more than $63,000 worth of Monero (XMR) in just three months.
According to a report published by ESET today, cybercriminals only made modifications to legitimate open source Monero mining software and exploited a known vulnerability in Microsoft IIS 6.0 to secretly install the miner on unpatched Windows servers.
Although ESET's investigation does not identify the attackers, it reports that the attackers have been infecting unpatched Windows web servers with the cryptocurrency miner since at least May 2017 to mine 'Monero,' a Bitcoin-like cryptocurrency.
The vulnerability (CVE-2017-7269) exploited by the attackers was discovered in March 2017 by Zhiniang Peng and Chen Wu and resides in the WebDAV service of Microsoft IIS version 6.0—the web server in Windows Server 2003 R2.
Therefore, hackers are only targeting unpatched machines running Windows Server 2003 to make them part of a botnet, which has already helped them made over $63,000 worth of Monero.
Since the vulnerability is on a web server, which is meant to be visible from the internet, it can be accessed and exploited by anyone. You can learn more about the vulnerability here.
The newly discovered malware mines Monero that has a total market valuation of about $1.4 billion, which is far behind Bitcoin in market capitalisation, but cybercriminals' love for Monero is due to its focus on privacy.
Unlike Bitcoin, Monero offers untraceable transactions and is anonymous cryptocurrency in the world today.
Another reason of hackers favouring Monero is that it uses a proof-of-work algorithm called CryptoNight, which suits computer or server CPUs and GPUs, while Bitcoin mining requires specific mining hardware.
However, this is not the first time when analysts have spotted such malware mining Monero by stealing computing resources of compromised computers.
In mid-May, Proofpoint researcher Kafeine discovered cryptocurrency mining malware, called 'Adylkuzz,' which was using EternalBlue exploit—created by the NSA and dumped last month by the Shadow Brokers in April—to infect unpatched Windows systems to mine Monero.
A week before that, GuardiCore researchers discovered a new botnet malware, dubbed BondNet, that was also infecting Windows systems, with a combination of techniques, for primarily mining Monero.
| Vulnerability |
24-year-old Russian Hacker and Developer of SpyEye Banking Trojan pleads guilty | https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/Author-of-SpyEye-Banking-Trojan-pleads-guilty.html | A Russian man has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in a federal court in Atlanta on Tuesday for developing and distributing a malicious banking malware 'SpyEye' that infected more than 1.4 million computers worldwide since 2009.
Aleksandr Andreevich Panin, a 24 year old programmer, also known as Gribodemon and Harderman, was the main author of 'SpyEye', a sophisticated malware designed to steal people's identities and financial information, including online banking credentials, credit card information, user names, passwords and PINs from their bank accounts without their knowledge.
The SpyEye secretly infects the victim's computer and gives the remote control to the cybercriminals who remotely access the infected computer through command and control servers and steal victims' personal and financial information through a variety of techniques, including web injects, keystroke loggers, and credit card grabbers without authorization.
Between 2009 and 2011, Panin conspired with Hamza Bendelladj, marketed and advertised the Spy Eye malware on various online forums. He sold versions of the SpyEye virus to almost 150 clients for prices ranging from $1,000 to $8,500 and one of his clients, "Soldier," is reported to have made over $3.2 million in a six-month period using the SpyEye virus.
SpyEye is a ready-made malware toolkit used by cybercriminals since from 2009 and is still being used today. It has been estimated by the industry that over 10,000 bank accounts have been compromised by SpyEye infections in 2013 alone.
The case is being investigated by Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who stated,
"This investigation highlights the importance of the FBI's focus on the top echelon of cyber criminals" adding that "The FBI will continue working with partners domestically and internationally to combat cybercrime."
Thereafter, in February 2011, the FBI searched and seized a SpyEye command and control server that controlled over 200 computers infected with the SpyEye virus and contained information from numerous financial institutions and was allegedly operated by Hamza Bendelladj in Georgia.
On July 2011, the FBI agents communicated directly with Panin and purchased a version of SpyEye that contained features designed to steal confidential financial information, initiate fraudulent online banking transactions, install keystroke loggers, and initiate distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks from computers infected with the SpyEye malware.
On January 2013, the Algerian man, Hamza Bendelladj, who was also indicted in the case was arrested in Thailand. The case against him is still pending, and Panin was arrested in July 2013 while he was flying through Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta for allegedly using the Web to scam various banks.
| Malware |
Subsets and Splits