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

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

Researchers Uncover Flaws in Python Package for AI Models and PDF.js Used by Firefox

A critical security flaw has been disclosed in the llama_cpp_python Python package that could be exploited by threat actors to achieve arbitrary code execution. Tracked as CVE-2024-34359 (CVSS score: 9.7), the flaw has been codenamed Llama Drama by software supply chain security firm Checkmarx. "If exploited, it could allow attackers to execute arbitrary code on your system,

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

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 

Researchers Detail Multistage Attack Hijacking Systems with SSLoad, Cobalt Strike

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered an ongoing attack campaign that's leveraging phishing emails to deliver a malware called SSLoad. The campaign, codenamed FROZEN#SHADOW by Securonix, also involves the deployment of Cobalt Strike and the ConnectWise ScreenConnect remote desktop software. "SSLoad is designed to stealthily infiltrate systems, gather sensitive

OpenJS Foundation Targeted in Potential JavaScript Project Takeover Attempt

Security researchers have uncovered a "credible" takeover attempt targeting the OpenJS Foundation in a manner that evokes similarities to the recently uncovered incident aimed at the open-source XZ Utils project. "The OpenJS Foundation Cross Project Council received a suspicious series of emails with similar messages, bearing different names and overlapping GitHub-associated emails," OpenJS

Sneaky Credit Card Skimmer Disguised as Harmless Facebook Tracker

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a credit card skimmer that's concealed within a fake Meta Pixel tracker script in an attempt to evade detection. Sucuri said that the malware is injected into websites through tools that allow for custom code, such as WordPress plugins like Simple Custom CSS and JS or the "Miscellaneous Scripts" section of the Magento admin panel. "

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

New Wave of JSOutProx Malware Targeting Financial Firms in APAC and MENA

Financial organizations in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are being targeted by a new version of an "evolving threat" called JSOutProx. "JSOutProx is a sophisticated attack framework utilizing both JavaScript and .NET," Resecurity said in a technical report published this week. "It employs the .NET (de)serialization feature to interact with a core

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

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.

Massive Sign1 Campaign Infects 39,000+ WordPress Sites with Scam Redirects

A massive malware campaign dubbed Sign1 has compromised over 39,000 WordPress sites in the last six months, using malicious JavaScript injections to redirect users to scam sites. The most recent variant of the malware is estimated to have infected no less than 2,500 sites over the past two months alone, Sucuri said in a report published this week. The attacks entail injecting rogue

New DEEP#GOSU Malware Campaign Targets Windows Users with Advanced Tactics

A new elaborate attack campaign has been observed employing PowerShell and VBScript malware to infect Windows systems and harvest sensitive information. Cybersecurity company Securonix, which dubbed the campaign DEEP#GOSU, said it's likely associated with the North Korean state-sponsored group tracked as Kimsuky (aka Emerald Sleet, Springtail, or Velvet Chollima). "The malware payloads used in

Malware Campaign Exploits Popup Builder WordPress Plugin to Infect 3,900+ Sites

A new malware campaign is leveraging a high-severity security flaw in the Popup Builder plugin for WordPress to inject malicious JavaScript code. According to Sucuri, the campaign has infected more than 3,900 sites over the past three weeks. "These attacks are orchestrated from domains less than a month old, with registrations dating back to February 12th, 2024," security researcher

Hacked WordPress Sites Abusing Visitors' Browsers for Distributed Brute-Force Attacks

Threat actors are conducting brute-force attacks against WordPress sites by leveraging malicious JavaScript injections, new findings from Sucuri reveal. The attacks, which take the form of distributed brute-force attacks, “target WordPress websites from the browsers of completely innocent and unsuspecting site visitors,” security researcher Denis Sinegubko said. The activity is part of a&

New Backdoor Targeting European Officials Linked to Indian Diplomatic Events

A previously undocumented threat actor dubbed SPIKEDWINE has been observed targeting officials in European countries with Indian diplomatic missions using a new backdoor called WINELOADER. The adversary, according to a report from Zscaler ThreatLabz, used a PDF file in emails that purported to come from the Ambassador of India, inviting diplomatic staff to a wine-tasting

WordPress LiteSpeed Plugin Vulnerability Puts 5 Million Sites at Risk

A security vulnerability has been disclosed in the LiteSpeed Cache plugin for WordPress that could enable unauthenticated users to escalate their privileges. Tracked as CVE-2023-40000, the vulnerability was addressed in October 2023 in version 5.7.0.1. "This plugin suffers from unauthenticated site-wide stored [cross-site scripting] vulnerability and could allow any unauthenticated user

VMware Alert: Uninstall EAP Now - Critical Flaw Puts Active Directory at Risk

VMware is urging users to uninstall the deprecated Enhanced Authentication Plugin (EAP) following the discovery of a critical security flaw. Tracked as CVE-2024-22245 (CVSS score: 9.6), the vulnerability has been described as an arbitrary authentication relay bug. "A malicious actor could trick a target domain user with EAP installed in their web browser into requesting and relaying

Russian-Linked Hackers Target 80+ Organizations via Roundcube Flaws

Threat actors operating with interests aligned to Belarus and Russia have been linked to a new cyber espionage campaign that likely exploited cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in Roundcube webmail servers to target over 80 organizations. These entities are primarily located in Georgia, Poland, and Ukraine, according to Recorded Future, which attributed the intrusion set to a threat

Alert: CISA Warns of Active 'Roundcube' Email Attacks - Patch Now

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Monday added a medium-severity security flaw impacting Roundcube email software to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation. The issue, tracked as CVE-2023-43770 (CVSS score: 6.1), relates to a cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw that stems from the handling of

New Coyote Trojan Targets 61 Brazilian Banks with Nim-Powered Attack

Sixty-one banking institutions, all of them originating from Brazil, are the target of a new banking trojan called Coyote. "This malware utilizes the Squirrel installer for distribution, leveraging Node.js and a relatively new multi-platform programming language called Nim as a loader to complete its infection," Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky said in a Thursday report. What

Hackers Exploit Job Boards, Stealing Millions of Resumes and Personal Data

Employment agencies and retail companies chiefly located in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region have been targeted by a previously undocumented threat actor known as ResumeLooters since early 2023 with the goal of stealing sensitive data. Singapore-headquartered Group-IB said the hacking crew's activities are geared towards job search platforms and the theft of resumes, with as many as 65

Juniper Networks Releases Urgent Junos OS Updates for High-Severity Flaws

Juniper Networks has released out-of-band updates to address high-severity flaws in SRX Series and EX Series that could be exploited by a threat actor to take control of susceptible systems. The vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2024-21619 and CVE-2024-21620, are rooted in the J-Web component and impact all versions of Junos OS. Two other shortcomings, CVE-2023-36846 and CVE-2023-

Albabat, Kasseika, Kuiper: New Ransomware Gangs Rise with Rust and Golang

Cybersecurity researchers have detected in the wild yet another variant of the Phobos ransomware family known as Faust. Fortinet FortiGuard Labs, which detailed the latest iteration of the ransomware, said it's being propagated by means of an infection that delivers a Microsoft Excel document (.XLAM) containing a VBA script. "The attackers utilized the Gitea service to store several files

Critical Jenkins Vulnerability Exposes Servers to RCE Attacks - Patch ASAP!

The maintainers of the open-source continuous integration/continuous delivery and deployment (CI/CD) automation software Jenkins have resolved nine security flaws, including a critical bug that, if successfully exploited, could result in remote code execution (RCE). The issue, assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2024-23897, has been described as an arbitrary file read vulnerability through the

Balada Injector Infects Over 7,100 WordPress Sites Using Plugin Vulnerability

Thousands of WordPress sites using a vulnerable version of the Popup Builder plugin have been compromised with a malware called Balada Injector. First documented by Doctor Web in January 2023, the campaign takes place in a series of periodic attack waves, weaponizing security flaws WordPress plugins to inject backdoor designed to redirect visitors of infected sites to bogus tech

Alert: New Vulnerabilities Discovered in QNAP and Kyocera Device Manager

A security flaw has been disclosed in Kyocera’s Device Manager product that could be exploited by bad actors to carry out malicious activities on affected systems. "This vulnerability allows attackers to coerce authentication attempts to their own resources, such as a malicious SMB share, to capture or relay Active Directory hashed credentials if the ‘Restrict NTLM: Outgoing NTLM

CERT-UA Uncovers New Malware Wave Distributing OCEANMAP, MASEPIE, STEELHOOK

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has warned of a new phishing campaign orchestrated by the Russia-linked APT28 group to deploy previously undocumented malware such as OCEANMAP, MASEPIE, and STEELHOOK to harvest sensitive information. The activity, which was detected by the agency between December 15 and 25, 2023, targeted Ukrainian

New JavaScript Malware Targeted 50,000+ Users at Dozens of Banks Worldwide

A new piece of JavaScript malware has been observed attempting to steal users' online banking account credentials as part of a campaign that has targeted more than 40 financial institutions across the world. The activity cluster, which employs JavaScript web injections, is estimated to have led to at least 50,000 infected user sessions spanning North America, South America, Europe, and Japan.

Play Ransomware Goes Commercial - Now Offered as a Service to Cybercriminals

The ransomware strain known as Play is now being offered to other threat actors "as a service," new evidence unearthed by Adlumin has revealed. "The unusual lack of even small variations between attacks suggests that they are being carried out by affiliates who have purchased the ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) and are following step-by-step instructions from playbooks delivered with it," the

NetSupport RAT Infections on the Rise - Targeting Government and Business Sectors

Threat actors are targeting the education, government and business services sectors with a remote access trojan called NetSupport RAT. "The delivery mechanisms for the NetSupport RAT encompass fraudulent updates, drive-by downloads, utilization of malware loaders (such as GHOSTPULSE), and various forms of phishing campaigns," VMware Carbon Black researchers said in a report shared with The

Randstorm Exploit: Bitcoin Wallets Created b/w 2011-2015 Vulnerable to Hacking

Bitcoin wallets created between 2011 and 2015 are susceptible to a new kind of exploit called Randstorm that makes it possible to recover passwords and gain unauthorized access to a multitude of wallets spanning several blockchain platforms. "Randstorm() is a term we coined to describe a collection of bugs, design decisions, and API changes that, when brought in contact with each other, combine

Russian Cyber Espionage Group Deploys LitterDrifter USB Worm in Targeted Attacks

Russian cyber espionage actors affiliated with the Federal Security Service (FSB) have been observed using a USB propagating worm called LitterDrifter in attacks targeting Ukrainian entities. Check Point, which detailed Gamaredon's (aka Aqua Blizzard, Iron Tilden, Primitive Bear, Shuckworm, and Winterflounder) latest tactics, branded the group as engaging in large-scale campaigns that are

27 Malicious PyPI Packages with Thousands of Downloads Found Targeting IT Experts

An unknown threat actor has been observed publishing typosquat packages to the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository for nearly six months with an aim to deliver malware capable of gaining persistence, stealing sensitive data, and accessing cryptocurrency wallets for financial gain. The 27 packages, which masqueraded as popular legitimate Python libraries, attracted thousands of downloads,

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:

Critical Flaws Discovered in Veeam ONE IT Monitoring Software – Patch Now

Veeam has released security updates to address four flaws in its ONE IT monitoring and analytics platform, two of which are rated critical in severity. The list of vulnerabilities is as follows - CVE-2023-38547 (CVSS score: 9.9) - An unspecified flaw that can be leveraged by an unauthenticated user to gain information about the SQL server connection Veeam ONE uses to access its configuration

48 Malicious npm Packages Found Deploying Reverse Shells on Developer Systems

A new set of 48 malicious npm packages have been discovered in the npm repository with capabilities to deploy a reverse shell on compromised systems. "These packages, deceptively named to appear legitimate, contained obfuscated JavaScript designed to initiate a reverse shell on package install," software supply chain security firm Phylum said. All the counterfeit packages have been published by

Nation State Hackers Exploiting Zero-Day in Roundcube Webmail Software

The threat actor known as Winter Vivern has been observed exploiting a zero-day flaw in Roundcube webmail software on October 11, 2023, to harvest email messages from victims' accounts. "Winter Vivern has stepped up its operations by using a zero-day vulnerability in Roundcube," ESET security researcher Matthieu Faou said in a new report published today. Previously, it was using known

Over 3 Dozen Data-Stealing Malicious npm Packages Found Targeting Developers

Nearly three dozen counterfeit packages have been discovered in the npm package repository that are designed to exfiltrate sensitive data from developer systems, according to findings from Fortinet FortiGuard Labs. One set of packages – named @expue/webpack, @expue/core, @expue/vue3-renderer, @fixedwidthtable/fixedwidthtable, and @virtualsearchtable/virtualsearchtable – harbored an obfuscated

Researchers Detail 8 Vulnerabilities in Azure HDInsight Analytics Service

More details have emerged about a set of now-patched cross-site scripting (XSS) flaws in the Microsoft Azure HDInsight open-source analytics service that could be weaponized by a threat actor to carry out malicious activities. "The identified vulnerabilities consisted of six stored XSS and two reflected XSS vulnerabilities, each of which could be exploited to perform unauthorized actions,

Node.js Users Beware: Manifest Confusion Attack Opens Door to Malware

The npm registry for the Node.js JavaScript runtime environment is susceptible to what's called a manifest confusion attack that could potentially allow threat actors to conceal malware in project dependencies or perform arbitrary script execution during installation. "A npm package's manifest is published independently from its tarball," Darcy Clarke, a former GitHub and npm engineering manager

Powerful JavaScript Dropper PindOS Distributes Bumblebee and IcedID Malware

A new strain of JavaScript dropper has been observed delivering next-stage payloads like Bumblebee and IcedID. Cybersecurity firm Deep Instinct is tracking the malware as PindOS, which contains the name in its "User-Agent" string. Both Bumblebee and IcedID serve as loaders, acting as a vector for other malware on compromised hosts, including ransomware. A recent report from Proofpoint 

Severe Vulnerabilities Reported in Microsoft Azure Bastion and Container Registry

Two "dangerous" security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in Microsoft Azure Bastion and Azure Container Registry that could have been exploited to carry out cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. "The vulnerabilities allowed unauthorized access to the victim's session within the compromised Azure service iframe, which can lead to severe consequences, including unauthorized data access,

New Flaw in WordPress Plugin Used by Over a Million Sites Under Active Exploitation

A security vulnerability has been disclosed in the popular WordPress plugin Essential Addons for Elementor that could be potentially exploited to achieve elevated privileges on affected sites. The issue, tracked as CVE-2023-32243, has been addressed by the plugin maintainers in version 5.7.2 that was shipped on May 11, 2023. Essential Addons for Elementor has over one million active

New Vulnerability in Popular WordPress Plugin Exposes Over 2 Million Sites to Cyberattacks

Users of Advanced Custom Fields plugin for WordPress are being urged to update version 6.1.6 following the discovery of a security flaw. The issue, assigned the identifier CVE-2023-30777, relates to a case of reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) that could be abused to inject arbitrary executable scripts into otherwise benign websites. The plugin, which is available both as a free and pro

Lack of Visibility: The Challenge of Protecting Websites from Third-Party Scripts

Third-party apps such as Google Analytics, Meta Pixel, HotJar, and JQuery have become critical tools for businesses to optimize their website performance and services for a global audience. However, as their importance has grown, so has the threat of cyber incidents involving unmanaged third-party apps and open-source tools. Online businesses increasingly struggle to maintain complete visibility

Critical Flaws in vm2 JavaScript Library Can Lead to Remote Code Execution

A fresh round of patches has been made available for the vm2 JavaScript library to address two critical flaws that could be exploited to break out of sandbox protections and achieve code execution. Both the flaws – CVE-2023-29199 and CVE-2023-30547 – are rated 9.8 out of 10 on the CVSS scoring system and have been addressed in versions 3.9.16 and 3.9.17, respectively. Successful exploitation of

Jenkins Security Alert: New Security Flaws Could Allow Code Execution Attacks

A pair of severe security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in the Jenkins open source automation server that could lead to code execution on targeted systems. The flaws, tracked as CVE-2023-27898 and CVE-2023-27905, impact the Jenkins server and Update Center, and have been collectively christened CorePlague by cloud security firm Aqua. All versions of Jenkins versions prior to 2.319.2 are

Unpatched Security Flaws Disclosed in Multiple Document Management Systems

Multiple unpatched security flaws have been disclosed in open source and freemium Document Management System (DMS) offerings from four vendors LogicalDOC, Mayan, ONLYOFFICE, and OpenKM. Cybersecurity firm Rapid7 said the eight vulnerabilities offer a mechanism through which "an attacker can convince a human operator to save a malicious document on the platform and, once the document is indexed

Experts Warn of 'Ice Breaker' Cyberattacks Targeting Gaming and Gambling Industry

A new attack campaign has been targeting the gaming and gambling sectors since at least September 2022, just as the ICE London 2023 gaming industry trade fair event is scheduled to kick off next week. Israeli cybersecurity company Security Joes is tracking the activity cluster under the name Ice Breaker, stating the intrusions employ clever social engineering tactics to deploy a JavaScript

Earth Bogle Campaign Unleashes NjRAT Trojan on Middle East and North Africa

An ongoing campaign dubbed Earth Bogle is leveraging geopolitical-themed lures to deliver the NjRAT remote access trojan to victims across the Middle East and North Africa. "The threat actor uses public cloud storage services such as files[.]fm and failiem[.]lv to host malware, while compromised web servers distribute NjRAT," Trend Micro said in a report published Wednesday. Phishing emails,

Australian Healthcare Sector Targeted in Latest Gootkit Malware Attacks

A recent wave of Gootkit malware loader attacks has targeted the Australian healthcare sector by leveraging legitimate tools like VLC Media Player. Gootkit, also called Gootloader, is known to employ search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning tactics (aka spamdexing) for initial access. It typically works by compromising and abusing legitimate infrastructure and seeding those sites with common

New shc-based Linux Malware Targeting Systems with Cryptocurrency Miner

A new Linux malware developed using the shell script compiler (shc) has been observed deploying a cryptocurrency miner on compromised systems. "It is presumed that after successful authentication through a dictionary attack on inadequately managed Linux SSH servers, various malware were installed on the target system," AhnLab Security Emergency Response Center (ASEC) said in a report published

GuLoader Malware Utilizing New Techniques to Evade Security Software

Cybersecurity researchers have exposed a wide variety of techniques adopted by an advanced malware downloader called GuLoader to evade security software. "New shellcode anti-analysis technique attempts to thwart researchers and hostile environments by scanning entire process memory for any virtual machine (VM)-related strings," CrowdStrike researchers Sarang Sonawane and Donato Onofri said in a

Two New Security Flaws Reported in Ghost CMS Blogging Software

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed two security flaws in the JavaScript-based blogging platform known as Ghost, one of which could be abused to elevate privileges via specially crafted HTTP requests. Ghost is an open source blogging platform that's used in more than 52,600 live websites, most of them located in the U.S., the U.K., German, China, France, Canada, and India. Tracked as CVE-

Researchers Disclose Critical RCE Vulnerability Affecting Quarkus Java Framework

A critical security vulnerability has been disclosed in the Quarkus Java framework that could be potentially exploited to achieve remote code execution on affected systems. Tracked as CVE-2022-4116 (CVSS score: 9.8), the shortcoming could be trivially abused by a malicious actor without any privileges. "The vulnerability is found in the Dev UI Config Editor, which is vulnerable to drive-by

Critical RCE Flaw Reported in Spotify's Backstage Software Catalog and Developer Platform

Spotify's Backstage has been discovered as vulnerable to a severe security flaw that could be exploited to gain remote code execution by leveraging a recently disclosed bug in a third-party module. The vulnerability (CVSS score: 9.8), at its core, takes advantage of a critical sandbox escape in vm2, a popular JavaScript sandbox library (CVE-2022-36067 aka Sandbreak), that came to light last

Researchers Detail Critical RCE Flaw Reported in Popular vm2 JavaScript Sandbox

A now-patched security flaw in the vm2 JavaScript sandbox module could be abused by a remote adversary to break out of security barriers and perform arbitrary operations on the underlying machine. "A threat actor can bypass the sandbox protections to gain remote code execution rights on the host running the sandbox," GitHub said in an advisory published on September 28, 2022. <!--adsense--> The

Comm100 Chat Provider Hijacked to Spread Malware in Supply Chain Attack

A threat actor likely with associations to China has been attributed to a new supply chain attack that involves the use of a trojanized installer for the Comm100 Live Chat application to distribute a JavaScript backdoor. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said the attack made use of a signed Comm100 desktop agent app for Windows that was downloadable from the company's website. The scale of the