4-Step Approach to Mapping and Securing Your Organization's Most Critical Assets

You’re probably familiar with the term “critical assets”. These are the technology assets within your company's IT infrastructure that are essential to the functioning of your organization. If anything happens to these assets, such as application servers, databases, or privileged identities, the ramifications to your security posture can be severe.  But is every technology asset considered

Researchers Warn of CatDDoS Botnet and DNSBomb DDoS Attack Technique

The threat actors behind the CatDDoS malware botnet have exploited over 80 known security flaws in various software over the past three months to infiltrate vulnerable devices and co-opt them into a botnet for conducting distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. "CatDDoS-related gangs' samples have used a large number of known vulnerabilities to deliver samples," the QiAnXin XLab team 

New Tricks in the Phishing Playbook: Cloudflare Workers, HTML Smuggling, GenAI

Cybersecurity researchers are alerting of phishing campaigns that abuse Cloudflare Workers to serve phishing sites that are used to harvest users' credentials associated with Microsoft, Gmail, Yahoo!, and cPanel Webmail. The attack method, called transparent phishing or adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) phishing, "uses Cloudflare Workers to act as a reverse proxy server for a

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

Are Your SaaS Backups as Secure as Your Production Data?

Conversations about data security tend to diverge into three main threads: How can we protect the data we store on our on-premises or cloud infrastructure? What strategies and tools or platforms can reliably backup and restore data? What would losing all this data cost us, and how quickly could we get it back? All are valid and necessary conversations for technology organizations of all shapes

The End of an Era: Microsoft Phases Out VBScript for JavaScript and PowerShell

Microsoft on Wednesday outlined its plans to deprecate Visual Basic Script (VBScript) in the second half of 2024 in favor of more advanced alternatives such as JavaScript and PowerShell. "Technology has advanced over the years, giving rise to more powerful and versatile scripting languages such as JavaScript and PowerShell," Microsoft Program Manager Naveen Shankar said. "These languages

The Ultimate SaaS Security Posture Management Checklist, 2025 Edition

Since the first edition of The Ultimate SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) Checklist was released three years ago, the corporate SaaS sprawl has been growing at a double-digit pace. In large enterprises, the number of SaaS applications in use today is in the hundreds, spread across departmental stacks, complicating the job of security teams to protect organizations against

GHOSTENGINE Exploits Vulnerable Drivers to Disable EDRs in Cryptojacking Attack

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new cryptojacking campaign that employs vulnerable drivers to disable known security solutions (EDRs) and thwart detection in what's called a Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) attack. Elastic Security Labs is tracking the campaign under the name REF4578 and the primary payload as GHOSTENGINE. Previous research from Chinese

MS Exchange Server Flaws Exploited to Deploy Keylogger in Targeted Attacks

An unknown threat actor is exploiting known security flaws in Microsoft Exchange Server to deploy a keylogger malware in attacks targeting entities in Africa and the Middle East. Russian cybersecurity firm Positive Technologies said it identified over 30 victims spanning government agencies, banks, IT companies, and educational institutions. The first-ever compromise dates back to 2021. "This

Windows 11 to Deprecate NTLM, Add AI-Powered App Controls and Security Defenses

 Microsoft on Monday confirmed its plans to deprecate NT LAN Manager (NTLM) in Windows 11 in the second half of the year, as it announced a slew of new security measures to harden the widely-used desktop operating system. "Deprecating NTLM has been a huge ask from our security community as it will strengthen user authentication, and deprecation is planned in the second half of 2024," the

New XM Cyber Research: 80% of Exposures from Misconfigurations, Less Than 1% from CVEs

A new report from XM Cyber has found – among other insights - a dramatic gap between where most organizations focus their security efforts, and where the most serious threats actually reside. The new report, Navigating the Paths of Risk: The State of Exposure Management in 2024, is based on hundreds of thousands of attack path assessments conducted by the XM Cyber

North Korean Hackers Exploit Facebook Messenger in Targeted Malware Campaign

The North Korea-linked Kimsuky hacking group has been attributed to a new social engineering attack that employs fictitious Facebook accounts to targets via Messenger and ultimately delivers malware. "The threat actor created a Facebook account with a fake identity disguised as a public official working in the North Korean human rights field," South Korean cybersecurity company Genians

Cybercriminals Exploiting Microsoft’s Quick Assist Feature in Ransomware Attacks

The Microsoft Threat Intelligence team said it has observed a threat actor it tracks under the name Storm-1811 abusing the client management tool Quick Assist to target users in social engineering attacks. "Storm-1811 is a financially motivated cybercriminal group known to deploy Black Basta ransomware," the company said in a report published on May 15, 2024. The

It's Time to Master the Lift & Shift: Migrating from VMware vSphere to Microsoft Azure

While cloud adoption has been top of mind for many IT professionals for nearly a decade, it’s only in recent months, with industry changes and announcements from key players, that many recognize the time to make the move is now. It may feel like a daunting task, but tools exist to help you move your virtual machines (VMs) to a public cloud provider – like Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Patches 61 Flaws, Including Two Actively Exploited Zero-Days

Microsoft has addressed a total of 61 new security flaws in its software as part of its Patch Tuesday updates for May 2024, including two zero-days which have been actively exploited in the wild. Of the 61 flaws, one is rated Critical, 59 are rated Important, and one is rated Moderate in severity. This is in addition to 30 vulnerabilities&

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 "

Hackers Exploiting LiteSpeed Cache Bug to Gain Full Control of WordPress Sites

A high-severity flaw impacting the LiteSpeed Cache plugin for WordPress is being actively exploited by threat actors to create rogue admin accounts on susceptible websites. The findings come from WPScan, which said that the vulnerability (CVE-2023-40000, CVSS score: 8.3) has been leveraged to set up bogus admin users with the names wpsupp‑user 

Russian Hacker Dmitry Khoroshev Unmasked as LockBit Ransomware Administrator

The U.K. National Crime Agency (NCA) has unmasked the administrator and developer of the LockBit ransomware operation, revealing it to be a 31-year-old Russian national named Dmitry Yuryevich Khoroshev. In addition, Khoroshev has been sanctioned by the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCD), the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (

New 'Cuckoo' Persistent macOS Spyware Targeting Intel and Arm Macs

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new information stealer targeting Apple macOS systems that's designed to set up persistence on the infected hosts and act as a spyware. Dubbed Cuckoo by Kandji, the malware is a universal Mach-O binary that's capable of running on both Intel- and Arm-based Macs. The exact distribution vector is currently unclear, although there are

Microsoft Outlook Flaw Exploited by Russia's APT28 to Hack Czech, German Entities

Czechia and Germany on Friday revealed that they were the target of a long-term cyber espionage campaign conducted by the Russia-linked nation-state actor known as APT28, drawing condemnation from the European Union (E.U.), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the U.K., and the U.S. The Czech Republic's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), in a statement, said some unnamed

Expert-Led Webinar - Uncovering Latest DDoS Tactics and Learn How to Fight Back

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, the threat of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks looms more significant than ever. As these cyber threats grow in sophistication, understanding and countering them becomes crucial for any business seeking to protect its online presence. To address this urgent need, we are thrilled to announce our upcoming webinar, "Uncovering Contemporary

Hackers Increasingly Abusing Microsoft Graph API for Stealthy Malware Communications

Threat actors have been increasingly weaponizing Microsoft Graph API for malicious purposes with the aim of evading detection. This is done to "facilitate communications with command-and-control (C&C) infrastructure hosted on Microsoft cloud services," the Symantec Threat Hunter Team, part of Broadcom, said in a report shared with The Hacker News.

Four Critical Vulnerabilities Expose HPE Aruba Devices to RCE Attacks

HPE Aruba Networking (formerly Aruba Networks) has released security updates to address critical flaws impacting ArubaOS that could result in remote code execution (RCE) on affected systems. Of the 10 security defects, four are rated critical in severity - CVE-2024-26304 (CVSS score: 9.8) - Unauthenticated Buffer Overflow Vulnerability in the L2/L3 Management Service Accessed via

New U.K. Law Bans Default Passwords on Smart Devices Starting April 2024

The U.K. National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is calling on manufacturers of smart devices to comply with new legislation that prohibits them from using default passwords, effective April 29, 2024. "The law, known as the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure act (or PSTI act), will help consumers to choose smart devices that have been designed to

Navigating the Threat Landscape: Understanding Exposure Management, Pentesting, Red Teaming and RBVM

It comes as no surprise that today's cyber threats are orders of magnitude more complex than those of the past. And the ever-evolving tactics that attackers use demand the adoption of better, more holistic and consolidated ways to meet this non-stop challenge. Security teams constantly look for ways to reduce risk while improving security posture, but many

Ukraine Targeted in Cyberattack Exploiting 7-Year-Old Microsoft Office Flaw

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a targeted operation against Ukraine that has been found leveraging a nearly seven-year-old flaw in Microsoft Office to deliver Cobalt Strike on compromised systems. The attack chain, which took place at the end of 2023 according to Deep Instinct, employs a PowerPoint slideshow file ("signal-2023-12-20-160512.ppsx") as the starting point, with

Palo Alto Networks Outlines Remediation for Critical PAN-OS Flaw Under Attack

Palo Alto Networks has shared remediation guidance for a recently disclosed critical security flaw impacting PAN-OS that has come under active exploitation. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-3400 (CVSS score: 10.0), could be weaponized to obtain unauthenticated remote shell command execution on susceptible devices. It has been addressed in

Russia's APT28 Exploited Windows Print Spooler Flaw to Deploy 'GooseEgg' Malware

The Russia-linked nation-state threat actor tracked as APT28 weaponized a security flaw in the Microsoft Windows Print Spooler component to deliver a previously unknown custom malware called GooseEgg. The post-compromise tool, which is said to have been used since at least June 2020 and possibly as early as April 2019, leveraged a now-patched flaw that allowed for

New RedLine Stealer Variant Disguised as Game Cheats Using Lua Bytecode for Stealth

A new information stealer has been found leveraging Lua bytecode for added stealth and sophistication, findings from McAfee Labs reveal. The cybersecurity firm has assessed it to be a variant of a known malware called RedLine Stealer owing to the fact that the command-and-control (C2) server IP address has been previously identified as associated with the malware. RedLine Stealer,&nbsp

Recover from Ransomware in 5 Minutes—We will Teach You How!

Super Low RPO with Continuous Data Protection:Dial Back to Just Seconds Before an Attack Zerto, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, can help you detect and recover from ransomware in near real-time. This solution leverages continuous data protection (CDP) to ensure all workloads have the lowest recovery point objective (RPO) possible. The most valuable thing about CDP is that it does not use

Global Police Operation Disrupts 'LabHost' Phishing Service, Over 30 Arrested Worldwide

As many as 37 individuals have been arrested as part of an international crackdown on a cybercrime service called LabHost that has been used by criminal actors to steal personal credentials from victims around the world. Described as one of the largest Phishing-as-a-Service (PhaaS) providers, LabHost offered phishing pages targeting banks, high-profile organizations, and other service

Russian APT Deploys New 'Kapeka' Backdoor in Eastern European Attacks

A previously undocumented "flexible" backdoor called Kapeka has been "sporadically" observed in cyber attacks targeting Eastern Europe, including Estonia and Ukraine, since at least mid-2022. The findings come from Finnish cybersecurity firm WithSecure, which attributed the malware to the Russia-linked advanced persistent threat (APT) group tracked as Sandworm (aka APT44 or

Cisco Warns of Global Surge in Brute-Force Attacks Targeting VPN and SSH Services

Cisco is warning about a global surge in brute-force attacks targeting various devices, including Virtual Private Network (VPN) services, web application authentication interfaces, and SSH services, since at least March 18, 2024. "These attacks all appear to be originating from TOR exit nodes and a range of other anonymizing tunnels and proxies," Cisco Talos said. Successful attacks could

Palo Alto Networks Releases Urgent Fixes for Exploited PAN-OS Vulnerability

Palo Alto Networks has released hotfixes to address a maximum-severity security flaw impacting PAN-OS software that has come under active exploitation in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2024-3400 (CVSS score: 10.0), the critical vulnerability is a case of command injection in the GlobalProtect feature that an unauthenticated attacker could weaponize to execute arbitrary code with root

Zero-Day Alert: Critical Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS Flaw Under Active Attack

Palo Alto Networks is warning that a critical flaw impacting PAN-OS software used in its GlobalProtect gateways is being actively exploited in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2024-3400, the issue has a CVSS score of 10.0, indicating maximum severity. "A command injection vulnerability in the GlobalProtect feature of Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS software for specific PAN-OS versions and distinct

U.S. Federal Agencies Ordered to Hunt for Signs of Microsoft Breach and Mitigate Risks

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday issued an emergency directive (ED 24-02) urging federal agencies to hunt for signs of compromise and enact preventive measures following the recent compromise of Microsoft's systems that led to the theft of email correspondence with the company. The attack, which came to light earlier this year, has been

Raspberry Robin Returns: New Malware Campaign Spreading Through WSF Files

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new Raspberry Robin campaign wave that has been propagating the malware through malicious Windows Script Files (WSFs) since March 2024. "Historically, Raspberry Robin was known to spread through removable media like USB drives, but over time its distributors have experimented with other initial infection vectors," HP Wolf Security researcher Patrick

Webinar: Learn How to Stop Hackers from Exploiting Hidden Identity Weaknesses

We all know passwords and firewalls are important, but what about the invisible threats lurking beneath the surface of your systems? Identity Threat Exposures (ITEs) are like secret tunnels for hackers – they make your security way more vulnerable than you think. Think of it like this: misconfigurations, forgotten accounts, and old settings are like cracks in your digital fortress walls. Hackers

Microsoft Fixes 149 Flaws in Huge April Patch Release, Zero-Days Included

Microsoft has released security updates for the month of April 2024 to remediate a record 149 flaws, two of which have come under active exploitation in the wild. Of the 149 flaws, three are rated Critical, 142 are rated Important, three are rated Moderate, and one is rated Low in severity. The update is aside from 21 vulnerabilities that the company addressed in its

Researchers Discover LG Smart TV Vulnerabilities Allowing Root Access

Multiple security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in LG webOS running on its smart televisions that could be exploited to bypass authorization and gain root access on the devices. The findings come from Romanian cybersecurity firm Bitdefender, which discovered and reported the flaws in November 2023. The issues were fixed by LG as part of updates released on March 22, 2024. The

New HTTP/2 Vulnerability Exposes Web Servers to DoS Attacks

New research has found that the CONTINUATION frame in the HTTP/2 protocol can be exploited to conduct denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. The technique has been codenamed HTTP/2 CONTINUATION Flood by security researcher Bartek Nowotarski, who reported the issue to the CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) on January 25, 2024. "Many HTTP/2 implementations do not properly limit or sanitize the

Ivanti Rushes Patches for 4 New Flaws in Connect Secure and Policy Secure

Ivanti has released security updates to address four security flaws impacting Connect Secure and Policy Secure Gateways that could result in code execution and denial-of-service (DoS). The list of flaws is as follows - CVE-2024-21894 (CVSS score: 8.2) - A heap overflow vulnerability in the IPSec component of Ivanti Connect Secure (9.x, 22.x) and Ivanti Policy Secure allows an

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 [

U.S. Cyber Safety Board Slams Microsoft Over Breach by China-Based Hackers

The U.S. Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) has criticized Microsoft for a series of security lapses that led to the breach of nearly two dozen companies across Europe and the U.S. by a China-based nation-state group called Storm-0558 last year. The findings, released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Tuesday, found that the intrusion was preventable, and that it became successful

Hackers Target macOS Users with Malicious Ads Spreading Stealer Malware

Malicious ads and bogus websites are acting as a conduit to deliver two different stealer malware, including Atomic Stealer, targeting Apple macOS users. The ongoing infostealer attacks targeting macOS users may have adopted different methods to compromise victims' Macs, but operate with the end goal of stealing sensitive data, Jamf Threat Labs said in a report published Friday. One

PyPI Halts Sign-Ups Amid Surge of Malicious Package Uploads Targeting Developers

The maintainers of the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository briefly suspended new user sign-ups following an influx of malicious projects uploaded as part of a typosquatting campaign. PyPI said "new project creation and new user registration" was temporarily halted to mitigate what it said was a "malware upload campaign." The incident was resolved 10 hours later, on March 28, 2024, at 12:56

CISA Warns: Hackers Actively Attacking Microsoft SharePoint Vulnerability

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added a security flaw impacting Microsoft Sharepoint Server to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog based on evidence of active exploitation in the wild. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-24955 (CVSS score: 7.2), is a critical remote code execution flaw that allows an authenticated attacker with Site

Microsoft Edge Bug Could Have Allowed Attackers to Silently Install Malicious Extensions

A now-patched security flaw in the Microsoft Edge web browser could have been abused to install arbitrary extensions on users' systems and carry out malicious actions.  "This flaw could have allowed an attacker to exploit a private API, initially intended for marketing purposes, to covertly install additional browser extensions with broad permissions without the user's knowledge," Guardio

SASE Solutions Fall Short Without Enterprise Browser Extensions, New Report Reveals

As SaaS applications dominate the business landscape, organizations need optimized network speed and robust security measures. Many of them have been turning to SASE, a product category that offers cloud-based network protection while enhancing network infrastructure performance. However, a new report: "Better Together: SASE and Enterprise Browser Extension for the SaaS-First Enterprise" (

Alert: New Phishing Attack Delivers Keylogger Disguised as Bank Payment Notice

A new phishing campaign has been observed leveraging a novel loader malware to deliver an information stealer and keylogger called Agent Tesla. Trustwave SpiderLabs said it identified a phishing email bearing this attack chain on March 8, 2024. The message masquerades as a bank payment notification, urging the user to open an archive file attachment. The archive ("Bank Handlowy w Warszawie

Crafting Shields: Defending Minecraft Servers Against DDoS Attacks

Minecraft, with over 500 million registered users and 166 million monthly players, faces significant risks from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, threatening server functionality, player experience, and the game’s reputation. Despite the prevalence of DDoS attacks on the game, the majority of incidents go unreported, leaving a gap in awareness and protection. This article explains

Hackers Hijack GitHub Accounts in Supply Chain Attack Affecting Top-gg and Others

Unidentified adversaries orchestrated a sophisticated attack campaign that has impacted several individual developers as well as the GitHub organization account associated with Top.gg, a Discord bot discovery site. "The threat actors used multiple TTPs in this attack, including account takeover via stolen browser cookies, contributing malicious code with verified commits, setting up a custom

Key Lesson from Microsoft’s Password Spray Hack: Secure Every Account

In January 2024, Microsoft discovered they’d been the victim of a hack orchestrated by Russian-state hackers Midnight Blizzard (sometimes known as Nobelium). The concerning detail about this case is how easy it was to breach the software giant. It wasn’t a highly technical hack that exploited a zero-day vulnerability – the hackers used a simple password spray attack to take control of

AWS Patches Critical 'FlowFixation' Bug in Airflow Service to Prevent Session Hijacking

Cybersecurity researchers have shared details of a now-patched security vulnerability in Amazon Web Services (AWS) Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow (MWAA) that could be potentially exploited by a malicious actor to hijack victims' sessions and achieve remote code execution on underlying instances. The vulnerability, now addressed by AWS, has been codenamed FlowFixation by Tenable.

Russia Hackers Using TinyTurla-NG to Breach European NGO's Systems

The Russia-linked threat actor known as Turla infected several systems belonging to an unnamed European non-governmental organization (NGO) in order to deploy a backdoor called TinyTurla-NG (TTNG). "The attackers compromised the first system, established persistence and added exclusions to antivirus products running on these endpoints as part of their preliminary post-compromise actions," Cisco

Atlassian Releases Fixes for Over 2 Dozen Flaws, Including Critical Bamboo Bug

Atlassian has released patches for more than two dozen security flaws, including a critical bug impacting Bamboo Data Center and Server that could be exploited without requiring user interaction. Tracked as CVE-2024-1597, the vulnerability carries a CVSS score of 10.0, indicating maximum severity. Described as an SQL injection flaw, it's rooted in a dependency called org.postgresql:

New 'Loop DoS' Attack Impacts Hundreds of Thousands of Systems

A novel denial-of-service (DoS) attack vector has been found to target application-layer protocols based on User Datagram Protocol (UDP), putting hundreds of thousands of hosts likely at risk. Called Loop DoS attacks, the approach pairs "servers of these protocols in such a way that they communicate with each other indefinitely," researchers from the CISPA Helmholtz-Center for

From Deepfakes to Malware: AI's Expanding Role in Cyber Attacks

Large language models (LLMs) powering artificial intelligence (AI) tools today could be exploited to develop self-augmenting malware capable of bypassing YARA rules. "Generative AI can be used to evade string-based YARA rules by augmenting the source code of small malware variants, effectively lowering detection rates," Recorded Future said in a new report shared with The Hacker News.

Hackers Exploiting Popular Document Publishing Sites for Phishing Attacks

Threat actors are leveraging digital document publishing (DDP) sites hosted on platforms like FlipSnack, Issuu, Marq, Publuu, RelayTo, and Simplebooklet for carrying out phishing, credential harvesting, and session token theft, once again underscoring how threat actors are repurposing legitimate services for malicious ends. "Hosting phishing lures on DDP sites increases the likelihood

New Phishing Attack Uses Clever Microsoft Office Trick to Deploy NetSupport RAT

A new phishing campaign is targeting U.S. organizations with the intent to deploy a remote access trojan called NetSupport RAT. Israeli cybersecurity company Perception Point is tracking the activity under the moniker Operation PhantomBlu. "The PhantomBlu operation introduces a nuanced exploitation method, diverging from NetSupport RAT’s typical delivery mechanism by leveraging OLE (Object