Pakistan-linked Hackers Deploy Python, Golang, and Rust Malware on Indian Targets

The Pakistan-nexus Transparent Tribe actor has been linked to a new set of attacks targeting Indian government, defense, and aerospace sectors using cross-platform malware written in Python, Golang, and Rust. "This cluster of activity spanned from late 2023 to April 2024 and is anticipated to persist," the BlackBerry Research and Intelligence Team said in a technical report

Update Chrome Browser Now: 4th Zero-Day Exploit Discovered in May 2024

Google on Thursday rolled out fixes to address a high-severity security flaw in its Chrome browser that it said has been exploited in the wild. Assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2024-5274, the vulnerability relates to a type confusion bug in the V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine. It was reported by Clément Lecigne of Google's Threat Analysis Group and Brendon Tiszka of

Malware Delivery via Cloud Services Exploits Unicode Trick to Deceive Users

A new attack campaign dubbed CLOUD#REVERSER has been observed leveraging legitimate cloud storage services like Google Drive and Dropbox to stage malicious payloads. "The VBScript and PowerShell scripts in the CLOUD#REVERSER inherently involves command-and-control-like activities by using Google Drive and Dropbox as staging platforms to manage file uploads and downloads," Securonix

Google Patches Yet Another Actively Exploited Chrome Zero-Day Vulnerability

Google has rolled out fixes to address a set of nine security issues in its Chrome browser, including a new zero-day that has been exploited in the wild. Assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2024-4947, the vulnerability relates to a type confusion bug in the V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine. It was reported by Kaspersky researchers Vasily Berdnikov and Boris

Android 15 Rolls Out Advanced Features to Protect Users from Scams and Malicious Apps

Google is unveiling a set of new features in Android 15 to prevent malicious apps installed on the device from capturing sensitive data. This constitutes an update to the Play Integrity API that third-party app developers can take advantage of to secure their applications against malware. "Developers can check if there are other apps running that could be capturing the screen, creating

Google Launches AI-Powered Theft and Data Protection Features for Android Devices

Google has announced a slew of privacy and security features in Android, including a suite of advanced protection features to help secure users' devices and data in the event of a theft. These features aim to help protect data before, during and after a theft attempt, the tech giant said, adding they are expected to be available via an update to Google Play services for devices running

New Chrome Zero-Day Vulnerability CVE-2024-4761 Under Active Exploitation

Google on Monday shipped emergency fixes to address a new zero-day flaw in the Chrome web browser that has come under active exploitation in the wild. The high-severity vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-4761, is an out-of-bounds write bug impacting the V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine. It was reported anonymously on May 9, 2024. Out-of-bounds write bugs could be typically

Apple and Google Launch Cross-Platform Feature to Detect Unwanted Bluetooth Tracking Devices

Apple and Google on Monday officially announced the rollout of a new feature that notifies users across both iOS and Android if a Bluetooth tracking device is being used to stealthily keep tabs on them without their knowledge or consent. "This will help mitigate the misuse of devices designed to help keep track of belongings," the companies said in a joint statement, adding it aims to address "

FIN7 Hacker Group Leverages Malicious Google Ads to Deliver NetSupport RAT

The financially motivated threat actor known as FIN7 has been observed leveraging malicious Google ads spoofing legitimate brands as a means to deliver MSIX installers that culminate in the deployment of NetSupport RAT. "The threat actors used malicious websites to impersonate well-known brands, including AnyDesk, WinSCP, BlackRock, Asana, Concur, The Wall

Chrome Zero-Day Alert — Update Your Browser to Patch New Vulnerability

Google on Thursday released security updates to address a zero-day flaw in Chrome that it said has been actively exploited in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2024-4671, the high-severity vulnerability has been described as a case of use-after-free in the Visuals component. It was reported by an anonymous researcher on May 7, 2024. Use-after-free bugs, which arise when a program

Google Simplifies 2-Factor Authentication Setup (It's More Important Than Ever)

Google on Monday announced that it's simplifying the process of enabling two-factor authentication (2FA) for users with personal and Workspace accounts. Also called 2-Step Verification (2SV), it aims to add an extra layer of security to users' accounts to prevent takeover attacks in case the passwords are stolen. The new change entails adding a second step method, such as an

Google Announces Passkeys Adopted by Over 400 Million Accounts

Google on Thursday announced that passkeys are being used by over 400 million Google accounts, authenticating users more than 1 billion times over the past two years. "Passkeys are easy to use and phishing resistant, only relying on a fingerprint, face scan or a pin making them 50% faster than passwords," Heather Adkins, vice president of security engineering at Google, said.

Google Prevented 2.28 Million Malicious Apps from Reaching Play Store in 2023

Google on Monday revealed that almost 200,000 app submissions to its Play Store for Android were either rejected or remediated to address issues with access to sensitive data such as location or SMS messages over the past year. The tech giant also said it blocked 333,000 bad accounts from the app storefront in 2023 for attempting to distribute malware or for repeated policy violations. "In 2023,

Google Postpones Third-Party Cookie Deprecation Amid U.K. Regulatory Scrutiny

Google has once again pushed its plans to deprecate third-party tracking cookies in its Chrome web browser as it works to address outstanding competition concerns from U.K. regulators over its Privacy Sandbox initiative. The tech giant said it's working closely with the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and hopes to achieve an agreement by the end of the year. As part of the

Malicious Google Ads Pushing Fake IP Scanner Software with Hidden Backdoor

A new Google malvertising campaign is leveraging a cluster of domains mimicking a legitimate IP scanner software to deliver a previously unknown backdoor dubbed MadMxShell. "The threat actor registered multiple look-alike domains using a typosquatting technique and leveraged Google Ads to push these domains to the top of search engine results targeting specific search keywords, thereby

AWS, Google, and Azure CLI Tools Could Leak Credentials in Build Logs

New cybersecurity research has found that command-line interface (CLI) tools from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud can expose sensitive credentials in build logs, posing significant risks to organizations. The vulnerability has been codenamed LeakyCLI by cloud security firm Orca. "Some commands on Azure CLI, AWS CLI, and Google Cloud CLI can expose sensitive information in

'eXotic Visit' Spyware Campaign Targets Android Users in India and Pakistan

An active Android malware campaign dubbed eXotic Visit has been primarily targeting users in South Asia, particularly those in India and Pakistan, with malware distributed via dedicated websites and Google Play Store. Slovak cybersecurity firm said the activity, ongoing since November 2021, is not linked to any known threat actor or group. It's tracking the group behind the operation under the

Google Chrome Adds V8 Sandbox - A New Defense Against Browser Attacks

Google has announced support for what's called a V8 Sandbox in the Chrome web browser in an effort to address memory corruption issues. The sandbox, according to V8 security technical lead Samuel Groß, aims to prevent "memory corruption in V8 from spreading within the host process." The search behemoth has described V8 Sandbox as a lightweight, in-process sandbox

Google Sues App Developers Over Fake Crypto Investment App Scam

Google has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. against two app developers for allegedly engaging in an "international online consumer investment fraud scheme" that tricked users into downloading bogus Android apps from the Google Play Store and other sources and stealing their funds under the guise of promising higher returns. The individuals in question are Yunfeng Sun (aka Alphonse Sun) and Hongnam

Google Warns: Android Zero-Day Flaws in Pixel Phones Exploited by Forensic Companies

Google has disclosed that two Android security flaws impacting its Pixel smartphones have been exploited in the wild by forensic companies. The high-severity zero-day vulnerabilities are as follows - CVE-2024-29745 - An information disclosure flaw in the bootloader component CVE-2024-29748 - A privilege escalation flaw in the firmware component "There are indications that the [

Google Chrome Beta Tests New DBSC Protection Against Cookie-Stealing Attacks

Google on Tuesday said it's piloting a new feature in Chrome called Device Bound Session Credentials (DBSC) to help protect users against session cookie theft by malware. The prototype – currently tested against "some" Google Account users running Chrome Beta – is built with an aim to make it an open web standard, the tech giant's Chromium team said. "By binding authentication sessions to the

Google to Delete Billions of Browsing Records in 'Incognito Mode' Privacy Lawsuit Settlement

Google has agreed to purge billions of data records reflecting users' browsing activities to settle a class action lawsuit that claimed the search giant tracked them without their knowledge or consent in its Chrome browser. The class action, filed in 2020, alleged the company misled users by tracking their internet browsing activity who thought that it remained private when using the "

Malicious Apps Caught Secretly Turning Android Phones into Proxies for Cybercriminals

Several malicious Android apps that turn mobile devices running the operating system into residential proxies (RESIPs) for other threat actors have been observed on the Google Play Store. The findings come from HUMAN's Satori Threat Intelligence team, which said the cluster of VPN apps came fitted with a Golang library that transformed the user's device into a proxy node without their knowledge.

Google Introduces Enhanced Real-Time URL Protection for Chrome Users

Google on Thursday announced an enhanced version of Safe Browsing to provide real-time, privacy-preserving URL protection and safeguard users from visiting potentially malicious sites. “The Standard protection mode for Chrome on desktop and iOS will check sites against Google’s server-side list of known bad sites in real-time,” Google’s Jonathan Li and Jasika Bawa said. “If we

Researchers Highlight Google's Gemini AI Susceptibility to LLM Threats

Google's Gemini large language model (LLM) is susceptible to security threats that could cause it to divulge system prompts, generate harmful content, and carry out indirect injection attacks. The findings come from HiddenLayer, which said the issues impact consumers using Gemini Advanced with Google Workspace as well as companies using the LLM API. The first vulnerability involves

Ex-Google Engineer Arrested for Stealing AI Technology Secrets for China

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announced the indictment of a 38-year-old Chinese national and a California resident for allegedly stealing proprietary information from Google while covertly working for two China-based tech companies. Linwei Ding (aka Leon Ding), a former Google engineer who was arrested on March 6, 2024, "transferred sensitive Google trade secrets and other confidential

How to Find and Fix Risky Sharing in Google Drive

Every Google Workspace administrator knows how quickly Google Drive becomes a messy sprawl of loosely shared confidential information. This isn't anyone's fault; it’s inevitable as your productivity suite is purposefully designed to enable real-time collaboration – both internally and externally.  For Security & Risk Management teams, the untenable risk of any Google Drive footprint

Banking Trojans Target Latin America and Europe Through Google Cloud Run

Cybersecurity researchers are warning about a spike in email phishing campaigns that are weaponizing the Google Cloud Run service to deliver various banking trojans such as Astaroth (aka Guildma), Mekotio, and Ousaban (aka Javali) to targets across Latin America (LATAM) and Europe. "The infection chains associated with these malware families feature the use of malicious

Anatsa Android Trojan Bypasses Google Play Security, Expands Reach to New Countries

The Android banking trojan known as Anatsa has expanded its focus to include Slovakia, Slovenia, and Czechia as part of a new campaign observed in November 2023. "Some of the droppers in the campaign successfully exploited the accessibility service, despite Google Play's enhanced detection and protection mechanisms," ThreatFabric said in a report shared with The Hacker News.

Google Open Sources Magika: AI-Powered File Identification Tool

Google has announced that it's open-sourcing Magika, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tool to identify file types, to help defenders accurately detect binary and textual file types. "Magika outperforms conventional file identification methods providing an overall 30% accuracy boost and up to 95% higher precision on traditionally hard to identify, but potentially problematic content

Google Starts Blocking Sideloading of Potentially Dangerous Android Apps in Singapore

Google has unveiled a new pilot program in Singapore that aims to prevent users from sideloading certain apps that abuse Android app permissions to read one-time passwords and gather sensitive data. "This enhanced fraud protection will analyze and automatically block the installation of apps that may use sensitive runtime permissions frequently abused for financial fraud when the user attempts

Malicious Ads on Google Target Chinese Users with Fake Messaging Apps

Chinese-speaking users have been targeted by malicious Google ads for restricted messaging apps like Telegram as part of an ongoing malvertising campaign. "The threat actor is abusing Google advertiser accounts to create malicious ads and pointing them to pages where unsuspecting users will download Remote Administration Trojan (RATs) instead," Malwarebytes' Jérôme Segura said in a

Google Kubernetes Misconfig Lets Any Gmail Account Control Your Clusters

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a loophole impacting Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) that could be potentially exploited by threat actors with a Google account to take control of a Kubernetes cluster. The critical shortcoming has been codenamed Sys:All by cloud security firm Orca. As many as 250,000 active GKE clusters in the wild are estimated to be susceptible to the attack vector. In

Russian COLDRIVER Hackers Expand Beyond Phishing with Custom Malware

The Russia-linked threat actor known as COLDRIVER has been observed evolving its tradecraft to go beyond credential harvesting to deliver its first-ever custom malware written in the Rust programming language. Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), which shared details of the latest activity, said the attack chains leverage PDFs as decoy documents to trigger the infection sequence. The lures are

Zero-Day Alert: Update Chrome Now to Fix New Actively Exploited Vulnerability

Google on Tuesday released updates to fix four security issues in its Chrome browser, including an actively exploited zero-day flaw. The issue, tracked as CVE-2024-0519, concerns an out-of-bounds memory access in the V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine, which can be weaponized by threat actors to trigger a crash. <!-- adsense --> "By reading out-of-bounds memory, an attacker might be able to

Threat Actors Increasingly Abusing GitHub for Malicious Purposes

The ubiquity of GitHub in information technology (IT) environments has made it a lucrative choice for threat actors to host and deliver malicious payloads and act as&nbsp;dead drop resolvers, command-and-control, and data exfiltration points. “Using GitHub services for malicious infrastructure allows adversaries to blend in with legitimate network traffic, often bypassing traditional security

Google Settles $5 Billion Privacy Lawsuit Over Tracking Users in 'Incognito Mode'

Google has agreed to settle a lawsuit&nbsp;filed in June 2020&nbsp;that alleged that the company misled users by tracking their surfing activity who thought that their internet use remained private when using the “incognito” or “private” mode on web browsers. The&nbsp;class-action lawsuit&nbsp;sought at least $5 billion in damages. The settlement terms were not disclosed. The plaintiffs had

Google Cloud Resolves Privilege Escalation Flaw Impacting Kubernetes Service

Google Cloud has addressed a medium-severity security flaw in its platform that could be abused by an attacker who already has access to a Kubernetes cluster to escalate their privileges. "An attacker who has compromised the&nbsp;Fluent Bit&nbsp;logging container could combine that access with high privileges required by&nbsp;Anthos Service Mesh&nbsp;(on clusters that have enabled it) to

New Sneaky Xamalicious Android Malware Hits Over 327,000 Devices

A new Android backdoor has been discovered with potent capabilities to carry out a range of malicious actions on infected devices. Dubbed&nbsp;Xamalicious&nbsp;by the McAfee Mobile Research Team, the malware is so named for the fact that it's developed using an open-source mobile app framework called Xamarin and abuses the operating system's accessibility permissions to fulfill its objectives.

Urgent: New Chrome Zero-Day Vulnerability Exploited in the Wild - Update ASAP

Google has rolled out security updates for the Chrome web browser to address a high-severity zero-day flaw that it said has been exploited in the wild. The vulnerability, assigned the CVE identifier&nbsp;CVE-2023-7024, has been described as a&nbsp;heap-based buffer overflow bug&nbsp;in the WebRTC framework that could be exploited to result in program crashes or arbitrary code execution. Clément

Google's New Tracking Protection in Chrome Blocks Third-Party Cookies

Google on Thursday announced that it will start testing a new feature called "Tracking Protection" beginning January 4, 2024, to 1% of Chrome users as part of its efforts to&nbsp;deprecate third-party cookies&nbsp;in the web browser. The setting is designed to limit "cross-site tracking by restricting website access to third-party cookies by default," Anthony Chavez, vice president of Privacy

BazaCall Phishing Scammers Now Leveraging Google Forms for Deception

The threat actors behind the&nbsp;BazaCall&nbsp;call back phishing attacks have been observed leveraging Google Forms to lend the scheme a veneer of credibility. The method is an "attempt to elevate the perceived authenticity of the initial malicious emails," cybersecurity firm Abnormal Security&nbsp;said&nbsp;in a report published today. BazaCall&nbsp;(aka BazarCall), which was&nbsp;first

Google Using Clang Sanitizers to Protect Android Against Cellular Baseband Vulnerabilities

Google is highlighting the role played by&nbsp;Clang sanitizers&nbsp;in hardening the security of the cellular baseband in the&nbsp;Android operating system&nbsp;and preventing specific kinds of vulnerabilities. This comprises Integer Overflow Sanitizer (IntSan) and BoundsSanitizer (BoundSan), both of which are part of UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer (UBSan), a tool designed to catch various kinds of

SpyLoan Scandal: 18 Malicious Loan Apps Defraud Millions of Android Users

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered 18&nbsp;malicious loan apps&nbsp;for Android on the Google Play Store that have been collectively downloaded over 12 million times. "Despite their attractive appearance, these services are in fact designed to defraud users by offering them high-interest-rate loans endorsed with deceitful descriptions, all while collecting their victims' personal and

New Bluetooth Flaw Let Hackers Take Over Android, Linux, macOS, and iOS Devices

A critical Bluetooth security flaw could be exploited by threat actors to take control of Android, Linux, macOS and iOS devices. Tracked as&nbsp;CVE-2023-45866, the issue relates to a case of authentication bypass that enables attackers to connect to susceptible devices and inject keystrokes to achieve code execution as the victim. "Multiple Bluetooth stacks have authentication bypass

Governments May Spy on You by Requesting Push Notifications from Apple and Google

Unspecified governments have demanded mobile push notification records from Apple and Google users to pursue people of interest, according to U.S. Senator Ron Wyden. "Push notifications are alerts sent by phone apps to users' smartphones," Wyden&nbsp;said. "These alerts pass through a digital post office run by the phone operating system provider -- overwhelmingly Apple or Google. Because of

Qualcomm Releases Details on Chip Vulnerabilities Exploited in Targeted Attacks

Chipmaker Qualcomm has released more information about three high-severity security flaws that it said came under "limited, targeted exploitation" back in October 2023. The&nbsp;vulnerabilities&nbsp;are as follows - CVE-2023-33063&nbsp;(CVSS score: 7.8) - Memory corruption in DSP Services during a remote call from HLOS to DSP. CVE-2023-33106&nbsp;(CVSS score: 8.4) - Memory corruption in

Zero-Day Alert: Apple Rolls Out iOS, macOS, and Safari Patches for 2 Actively Exploited Flaws

Apple has&nbsp;released&nbsp;software updates for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and Safari web browser to address two security flaws that it said have come under active exploitation in the wild on older versions of its software. The vulnerabilities, both of which reside in the WebKit web browser engine, are described below - CVE-2023-42916&nbsp;- An out-of-bounds read issue that could be exploited to

Google Unveils RETVec - Gmail's New Defense Against Spam and Malicious Emails

Google has revealed a new multilingual text vectorizer called&nbsp;RETVec&nbsp;(short for Resilient and Efficient Text Vectorizer) to&nbsp;help detect&nbsp;potentially harmful content such as spam and malicious emails in Gmail. "RETVec is trained to be resilient against character-level manipulations including insertion, deletion, typos, homoglyphs, LEET substitution, and more," according to the&

Zero-Day Alert: Google Chrome Under Active Attack, Exploiting New Vulnerability

Google has rolled out security updates to fix seven security issues in its Chrome browser, including a zero-day that has come under active exploitation in the wild. Tracked as&nbsp;CVE-2023-6345, the high-severity vulnerability has been described as an integer overflow bug in Skia, an open source 2D graphics library. Benoît Sevens and Clément Lecigne of Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) have

Design Flaw in Google Workspace Could Let Attackers Gain Unauthorized Access

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed a "severe design flaw" in Google Workspace's domain-wide delegation (DWD) feature that could be exploited by threat actors to facilitate privilege escalation and obtain unauthorized access to Workspace APIs without super admin privileges. "Such exploitation could result in theft of emails from Gmail, data exfiltration from Google Drive, or other

ClearFake Campaign Expands to Target Mac Systems with Atomic Stealer

The macOS information stealer known as Atomic is now being delivered to target via a bogus web browser update chain tracked as ClearFake. "This may very well be the first time we see one of the main social engineering campaigns, previously reserved for Windows, branch out not only in terms of geolocation but also operating system," Malwarebytes' Jérôme Segura said in a Tuesday analysis. Atomic

Malicious Apps Disguised as Banks and Government Agencies Targeting Indian Android Users

Android smartphone users in India are the target of a new malware campaign that employs social engineering lures to install fraudulent apps that are capable of harvesting sensitive data. “Using social media platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram, attackers are sending messages designed to lure users into installing a malicious app on their mobile device by impersonating legitimate organizations,

Beware: Malicious Google Ads Trick WinSCP Users into Installing Malware

Threat actors are leveraging manipulated search results and bogus Google ads that trick users who are looking to download legitimate software such as WinSCP into installing malware instead. Cybersecurity company Securonix is tracking the ongoing activity under the name SEO#LURKER. “The malicious advertisement directs the user to a compromised WordPress website gameeweb[.]com, which redirects the

Zero-Day Flaw in Zimbra Email Software Exploited by Four Hacker Groups

A zero-day flaw in the Zimbra Collaboration email software was exploited by four different groups in real-world attacks to pilfer email data, user credentials, and authentication tokens. "Most of this activity occurred after the initial fix became public on GitHub," Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG) said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-37580 (CVSS score:

Hackers Could Exploit Google Workspace and Cloud Platform for Ransomware Attacks

A set of novel attack methods has been demonstrated against Google Workspace and the Google Cloud Platform that could be potentially leveraged by threat actors to conduct ransomware, data exfiltration, and password recovery attacks. "Starting from a single compromised machine, threat actors could progress in several ways: they could move to other cloned machines with GCPW installed, gain access

Reptar: New Intel CPU Vulnerability Impacts Multi-Tenant Virtualized Environments

Intel has released fixes to close out a high-severity flaw codenamed Reptar that impacts its desktop, mobile, and server CPUs. Tracked as CVE-2023-23583 (CVSS score: 8.8), the issue has the potential to "allow escalation of privilege and/or information disclosure and/or denial of service via local access." Successful exploitation of the vulnerability could also permit a bypass of the CPU's

Vietnamese Hackers Using New Delphi-Powered Malware to Target Indian Marketers

The Vietnamese threat actors behind the Ducktail stealer malware have been linked to a new campaign that ran between March and early October 2023, targeting marketing professionals in India with an aim to hijack Facebook business accounts. "An important feature that sets it apart is that, unlike previous campaigns, which relied on .NET applications, this one used Delphi as the programming

SecuriDropper: New Android Dropper-as-a-Service Bypasses Google's Defenses

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a new dropper-as-a-service (DaaS) for Android called SecuriDropper that bypasses new security restrictions imposed by Google and delivers the malware. Dropper malware on Android is designed to function as a conduit to install a payload on a compromised device, making it a lucrative business model for threat actors, who can advertise the capabilities

Google Play Store Highlights 'Independent Security Review' Badge for VPN Apps

Google is rolling out a new banner to highlight the "Independent security review" badge in the Play Store's Data safety section for Android VPN apps that have undergone a Mobile Application Security Assessment (MASA) audit. "We've launched this banner beginning with VPN apps due to the sensitive and significant amount of user data these apps handle," Nataliya Stanetsky of the Android Security