New Research Warns About Weak Offboarding Management and Insider Risks

A recent study by Wing Security found that 63% of businesses may have former employees with access to organizational data, and that automating SaaS Security can help mitigate offboarding risks.  Employee offboarding is typically seen as a routine administrative task, but it can pose substantial security risks, if not handled correctly. Failing to quickly and thoroughly remove access for

BreachForums Returns Just Weeks After FBI Seizure - Honeypot or Blunder?

The online criminal bazaar BreachForums has been resurrected merely two weeks after a U.S.-led coordinated law enforcement action dismantled and seized control of its infrastructure. Cybersecurity researchers and dark web trackers Brett Callow, Dark Web Informer, and FalconFeeds revealed the site's online return at breachforums[.]st – one of the dismantled sites – by a user named ShinyHunters,

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

WordPress Plugin Exploited to Steal Credit Card Data from E-commerce Sites

Unknown threat actors are abusing lesser-known code snippet plugins for WordPress to insert malicious PHP code in victim sites that are capable of harvesting credit card data. The campaign, observed by Sucuri on May 11, 2024, entails the abuse of a WordPress plugin called Dessky Snippets, which allows users to add custom PHP code. It has over 200 active installations.

Experts Find Flaw in Replicate AI Service Exposing Customers' Models and Data

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a critical security flaw in an artificial intelligence (AI)-as-a-service provider Replicate that could have allowed threat actors to gain access to proprietary AI models and sensitive information. "Exploitation of this vulnerability would have allowed unauthorized access to the AI prompts and results of all Replicate's platform customers,"

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

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

QNAP Patches New Flaws in QTS and QuTS hero Impacting NAS Appliances

Taiwanese company QNAP has rolled out fixes for a set of medium-severity flaws impacting QTS and QuTS hero, some of which could be exploited to achieve code execution on its network-attached storage (NAS) appliances. The issues, which impact QTS 5.1.x and QuTS hero h5.1.x, are listed below - CVE-2024-21902 - An incorrect permission assignment for critical resource

Zoom Adopts NIST-Approved Post-Quantum End-to-End Encryption for Meetings

Popular enterprise services provider Zoom has announced the rollout of post-quantum end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for Zoom Meetings, with support for Zoom Phone and Zoom Rooms coming in the future. "As adversarial threats become more sophisticated, so does the need to safeguard user data," the company said in a statement. "With the launch of post-quantum E2EE, we are doubling down on

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

SolarMarker Malware Evolves to Resist Takedown Attempts with Multi-Tiered Infrastructure

The persistent threat actors behind the SolarMarker information-stealing malware have established a multi-tiered infrastructure to complicate law enforcement takedown efforts, new findings from Recorded Future show. "The core of SolarMarker's operations is its layered infrastructure, which consists of at least two clusters: a primary one for active operations and a secondary one likely

Chinese Nationals Arrested for Laundering $73 Million in Pig Butchering Crypto Scam

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has charged two arrested Chinese nationals for allegedly orchestrating a pig butchering scam that laundered at least $73 million from victims through shell companies. The individuals, Daren Li, 41, and Yicheng Zhang, 38, were arrested in Atlanta and Los Angeles on April 12 and May 16, respectively. The foreign nationals have been "charged for leading a scheme

FBI Seizes BreachForums Again, Urges Users to Report Criminal Activity

Law enforcement agencies have officially seized control of the notorious BreachForums platform, an online bazaar known for peddling stolen data, for the second time within a year. The website ("breachforums[.]st") has been replaced by a seizure banner stating the clearnet cybercrime forum is under the control of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).  The operation is the

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

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

The 2024 Browser Security Report Uncovers How Every Web Session Could be a Security Minefield

With the browser becoming the most prevalent workspace in the enterprise, it is also turning into a popular attack vector for cyber attackers. From account takeovers to malicious extensions to phishing attacks, the browser is a means for stealing sensitive data and accessing organizational systems. Security leaders who are planning their security architecture

Black Basta Ransomware Strikes 500+ Entities Across North America, Europe, and Australia

The Black Basta ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation has targeted more than 500 private industry and critical infrastructure entities in North America, Europe, and Australia since its emergence in April 2022. In a joint advisory published by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS

New TunnelVision Attack Allows Hijacking of VPN Traffic via DHCP Manipulation

Researchers have detailed a Virtual Private Network (VPN) bypass technique dubbed TunnelVision that allows threat actors to snoop on victim's network traffic by just being on the same local network. The "decloaking" method has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2024-3661 (CVSS score: 7.6). It impacts all operating systems that implement a DHCP client and has

New Guide: How to Scale Your vCISO Services Profitably

Cybersecurity and compliance guidance are in high demand among SMEs. However, many of them cannot afford to hire a full-time CISO. A vCISO can answer this need by offering on-demand access to top-tier cybersecurity expertise. This is also an opportunity for MSPs and MSSPs to grow their business and bottom line. MSPs and MSSPs that expand their offerings and provide vCISO services

New Spectre-Style 'Pathfinder' Attack Targets Intel CPU, Leak Encryption Keys and Data

Researchers have discovered two novel attack methods targeting high-performance Intel CPUs that could be exploited to stage a key recovery attack against the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm. The techniques have been collectively dubbed Pathfinder by a group of academics from the University of California San Diego, Purdue University, UNC Chapel

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 (

APT42 Hackers Pose as Journalists to Harvest Credentials and Access Cloud Data

The Iranian state-backed hacking outfit called APT42 is making use of enhanced social engineering schemes to infiltrate target networks and cloud environments. Targets of the attack include Western and Middle Eastern NGOs, media organizations, academia, legal services and activists, Google Cloud subsidiary Mandiant said in a report published last week. "APT42 was

New Case Study: The Malicious Comment

How safe is your comments section? Discover how a seemingly innocent 'thank you' comment on a product page concealed a malicious vulnerability, underscoring the necessity of robust security measures. Read the full real-life case study here.  When is a ‘Thank you’ not a ‘Thank you’? When it’s a sneaky bit of code that’s been hidden inside a ‘Thank You’

It Costs How Much?!? The Financial Pitfalls of Cyberattacks on SMBs

Cybercriminals are vipers. They’re like snakes in the grass, hiding behind their keyboards, waiting to strike. And if you're a small- and medium-sized business (SMB), your organization is the ideal lair for these serpents to slither into.  With cybercriminals becoming more sophisticated, SMBs like you must do more to protect themselves. But at what price? That’s the daunting question

Xiaomi Android Devices Hit by Multiple Flaws Across Apps and System Components

Multiple security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in various applications and system components within Xiaomi devices running Android. "The vulnerabilities in Xiaomi led to access to arbitrary activities, receivers and services with system privileges, theft of arbitrary files with system privileges, [and] disclosure of phone, settings and Xiaomi account data," mobile security firm

Popular Android Apps Like Xiaomi, WPS Office Vulnerable to File Overwrite Flaw

Several popular Android applications available in Google Play Store are susceptible to a path traversal-affiliated vulnerability codenamed the Dirty Stream attack that could be exploited by a malicious app to overwrite arbitrary files in the vulnerable app's home directory. "The implications of this vulnerability pattern include arbitrary code execution and token theft,

Dropbox Discloses Breach of Digital Signature Service Affecting All Users

Cloud storage services provider Dropbox on Wednesday disclosed that Dropbox Sign (formerly HelloSign) was breached by unidentified threat actors, who accessed emails, usernames, and general account settings associated with all users of the digital signature product. The company, in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), said it became aware of the "

CISA Warns of Active Exploitation of Severe GitLab Password Reset Vulnerability

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added a critical flaw impacting GitLab to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, owing to active exploitation in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2023-7028 (CVSS score: 10.0), the maximum severity vulnerability could facilitate account takeover by sending password reset emails to an unverified email

New Cuttlefish Malware Hijacks Router Connections, Sniffs for Cloud Credentials

A new malware called Cuttlefish is targeting small office and home office (SOHO) routers with the goal of stealthily monitoring all traffic through the devices and gather authentication data from HTTP GET and POST requests. "This malware is modular, designed primarily to steal authentication material found in web requests that transit the router from the adjacent

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

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,

Okta Warns of Unprecedented Surge in Proxy-Driven Credential Stuffing Attacks

Identity and access management (IAM) services provider Okta has warned of a spike in the "frequency and scale" of credential stuffing attacks aimed at online services. These unprecedented attacks, observed over the last month, are said to be facilitated by "the broad availability of residential proxy services, lists of previously stolen credentials ('combo lists'), and scripting tools," the

New 'Brokewell' Android Malware Spread Through Fake Browser Updates

Fake browser updates are being used to push a previously undocumented Android malware called Brokewell. "Brokewell is a typical modern banking malware equipped with both data-stealing and remote-control capabilities built into the malware," Dutch security firm ThreatFabric said in an analysis published Thursday. The malware is said to be in active development,

Hackers Exploiting WP-Automatic Plugin Bug to Create Admin Accounts on WordPress Sites

Threat actors are attempting to actively exploit a critical security flaw in the ValvePress Automatic plugin for WordPress that could allow site takeovers. The shortcoming, tracked as CVE-2024-27956, carries a CVSS score of 9.9 out of a maximum of 10. It impacts all versions of the plugin prior to 3.92.0. The issue has been resolved in version 3.92.1 released on February 27, 2024,

Network Threats: A Step-by-Step Attack Demonstration

Follow this real-life network attack simulation, covering 6 steps from Initial Access to Data Exfiltration. See how attackers remain undetected with the simplest tools and why you need multiple choke points in your defense strategy. Surprisingly, most network attacks are not exceptionally sophisticated, technologically advanced, or reliant on zero-day tools that exploit

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

Major Security Flaws Expose Keystrokes of Over 1 Billion Chinese Keyboard App Users

Security vulnerabilities uncovered in cloud-based pinyin keyboard apps could be exploited to reveal users' keystrokes to nefarious actors. The findings come from the Citizen Lab, which discovered weaknesses in eight of nine apps from vendors like Baidu, Honor, iFlytek, OPPO, Samsung, Tencent, Vivo, and Xiaomi. The only vendor whose keyboard app did not have any security

CoralRaider Malware Campaign Exploits CDN Cache to Spread Info-Stealers

A new ongoing malware campaign has been observed distributing three different stealers, such as CryptBot, LummaC2, and Rhadamanthys hosted on Content Delivery Network (CDN) cache domains since at least February 2024. Cisco Talos has attributed the activity with moderate confidence to a threat actor tracked as CoralRaider, a suspected Vietnamese-origin

Unmasking the True Cost of Cyberattacks: Beyond Ransom and Recovery

Cybersecurity breaches can be devastating for both individuals and businesses alike. While many people tend to focus on understanding how and why they were targeted by such breaches, there's a larger, more pressing question: What is the true financial impact of a cyberattack? According to research by Cybersecurity Ventures, the global cost of cybercrime is projected to reach

ToddyCat Hacker Group Uses Advanced Tools for Industrial-Scale Data Theft

The threat actor known as ToddyCat has been observed using a wide range of tools to retain access to compromised environments and steal valuable data. Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky characterized the adversary as relying on various programs to harvest data on an "industrial scale" from primarily governmental organizations, some of them defense related, located in

Pentera's 2024 Report Reveals Hundreds of Security Events per Week, Highlighting the Criticality of Continuous Validation

Over the past two years, a shocking 51% of organizations surveyed in a leading industry report have been compromised by a cyberattack. Yes, over half.  And this, in a world where enterprises deploy an average of 53 different security solutions to safeguard their digital domain.  Alarming? Absolutely. A recent survey of CISOs and CIOs, commissioned by Pentera and

Critical Update: CrushFTP Zero-Day Flaw Exploited in Targeted Attacks

Users of the CrushFTP enterprise file transfer software are being urged to update to the latest version following the discovery of a security flaw that has come under targeted exploitation in the wild. "CrushFTP v11 versions below 11.1 have a vulnerability where users can escape their VFS and download system files," CrushFTP said in an advisory released Friday.

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

New Android Trojan 'SoumniBot' Evades Detection with Clever Tricks

A new Android trojan called SoumniBot has been detected in the wild targeting users in South Korea by leveraging weaknesses in the manifest extraction and parsing procedure. The malware is "notable for an unconventional approach to evading analysis and detection, namely obfuscation of the Android manifest," Kaspersky researcher Dmitry Kalinin said in a technical analysis.

Hackers Exploit OpenMetadata Flaws to Mine Crypto on Kubernetes

Threat actors are actively exploiting critical vulnerabilities in OpenMetadata to gain unauthorized access to Kubernetes workloads and leverage them for cryptocurrency mining activity. That's according to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team, which said the flaws have been weaponized since the start of April 2024. OpenMetadata is an open-source platform that operates as a

GenAI: A New Headache for SaaS Security Teams

The introduction of Open AI’s ChatGPT was a defining moment for the software industry, touching off a GenAI race with its November 2022 release. SaaS vendors are now rushing to upgrade tools with enhanced productivity capabilities that are driven by generative AI. Among a wide range of uses, GenAI tools make it easier for developers to build software, assist sales teams in mundane email writing,

FTC Fines Mental Health Startup Cerebral $7 Million for Major Privacy Violations

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ordered mental telehealth company Cerebral from using or disclosing personal medical data for advertising purposes. It has also been fined more than $7 million over charges that it revealed users' sensitive personal health information and other data to third-parties for advertising purposes and failed to honor its easy cancellation policies. "Cerebral

Muddled Libra Shifts Focus to SaaS and Cloud for Extortion and Data Theft Attacks

The threat actor known as Muddled Libra has been observed actively targeting software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and cloud service provider (CSP) environments in a bid to exfiltrate sensitive data. "Organizations often store a variety of data in SaaS applications and use services from CSPs," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 said in a report published last week. "The threat

Chinese-Linked LightSpy iOS Spyware Targets South Asian iPhone Users

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a "renewed" cyber espionage campaign targeting users in South Asia with the aim of delivering an Apple iOS spyware implant called LightSpy. "The latest iteration of LightSpy, dubbed 'F_Warehouse,' boasts a modular framework with extensive spying features," the BlackBerry Threat Research and Intelligence Team said in a report published last

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

Python's PyPI Reveals Its Secrets

GitGuardian is famous for its annual State of Secrets Sprawl report. In their 2023 report, they found over 10 million exposed passwords, API keys, and other credentials exposed in public GitHub commits. The takeaways in their 2024 report did not just highlight 12.8 million new exposed secrets in GitHub, but a number in the popular Python package repository PyPI. PyPI,

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

Hackers Targeting Human Rights Activists in Morocco and Western Sahara

Human rights activists in Morocco and the Western Sahara region are the targets of a new threat actor that leverages phishing attacks to trick victims into installing bogus Android apps and serve credential harvesting pages for Windows users. Cisco Talos is tracking the activity cluster under the name Starry Addax, describing it as primarily singling out activists associated with

The Drop in Ransomware Attacks in 2024 and What it Means

The ransomware industry surged in 2023 as it saw an alarming 55.5% increase in victims worldwide, reaching a staggering 5,070. But 2024 is starting off showing a very different picture. While the numbers skyrocketed in Q4 2023 with 1309 cases, in Q1 2024, the ransomware industry was down to 1,048 cases. This is a 22% decrease in ransomware attacks compared to Q4 2023. Figure

CISO Perspectives on Complying with Cybersecurity Regulations

Compliance requirements are meant to increase cybersecurity transparency and accountability. As cyber threats increase, so do the number of compliance frameworks and the specificity of the security controls, policies, and activities they include. For CISOs and their teams, that means compliance is a time-consuming, high-stakes process that demands strong organizational and

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

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

Critical Security Flaw Found in Popular LayerSlider WordPress Plugin

A critical security flaw impacting the LayerSlider plugin for WordPress could be abused to extract sensitive information from databases, such as password hashes. The flaw, designated as CVE-2024-2879, carries a CVSS score of 9.8 out of a maximum of 10.0. It has been described as a case of SQL injection impacting versions from 7.9.11 through 7.10.0. The issue has been addressed in version

Harnessing the Power of CTEM for Cloud Security

Cloud solutions are more mainstream – and therefore more exposed – than ever before. In 2023 alone, a staggering 82% of data breaches were against public, private, or hybrid cloud environments. What’s more, nearly 40% of breaches spanned multiple cloud environments. The average cost of a cloud breach was above the overall average, at $4.75 million. In a time where cloud has become the de facto