Report: The Dark Side of Phishing Protection

The transition to the cloud, poor password hygiene and the evolution in webpage technologies have all enabled the rise in phishing attacks. But despite sincere efforts by security stakeholders to mitigate them - through email protection, firewall rules and employee education - phishing attacks are still a very risky attack vector. A new report by LayerX explores the state of

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,"

Rockwell Advises Disconnecting Internet-Facing ICS Devices Amid Cyber Threats

Rockwell Automation is urging its customers to disconnect all industrial control systems (ICSs) not meant to be connected to the public-facing internet to mitigate unauthorized or malicious cyber activity. The company said it's issuing the advisory due to "heightened geopolitical tensions and adversarial cyber activity globally." To that end, customers are required to take immediate

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

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

6 Mistakes Organizations Make When Deploying Advanced Authentication

Deploying advanced authentication measures is key to helping organizations address their weakest cybersecurity link: their human users. Having some form of 2-factor authentication in place is a great start, but many organizations may not yet be in that spot or have the needed level of authentication sophistication to adequately safeguard organizational data. When deploying

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

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,

New R Programming Vulnerability Exposes Projects to Supply Chain Attacks

A security vulnerability has been discovered in the R programming language that could be exploited by a threat actor to create a malicious RDS (R Data Serialization) file such that it results in code execution when loaded and referenced. The flaw, assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2024-27322 (CVSS score: 8.8), "involves the use of promise objects and lazy evaluation in R," AI application

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

German Authorities Issue Arrest Warrants for Three Suspected Chinese Spies

German authorities said they have issued arrest warrants against three citizens on suspicion of spying for China. The full names of the defendants were not disclosed by the Office of the Federal Prosecutor (aka Generalbundesanwalt), but it includes Herwig F., Ina F., and Thomas R. "The suspects are strongly suspected of working for a Chinese secret service since an unspecified

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,

AI Copilot: Launching Innovation Rockets, But Beware of the Darkness Ahead

Imagine a world where the software that powers your favorite apps, secures your online transactions, and keeps your digital life could be outsmarted and taken over by a cleverly disguised piece of code. This isn't a plot from the latest cyber-thriller; it's actually been a reality for years now. How this will change – in a positive or negative direction – as artificial intelligence (AI) takes on

U.S. Treasury Hamas Spokesperson for Cyber Influence Operations

The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Friday announced sanctions against an official associated with Hamas for his involvement in cyber influence operations. Hudhayfa Samir ‘Abdallah al-Kahlut, 39, also known as Abu Ubaida, has served as the public spokesperson of Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, since at least 2007. "He publicly

Apple Updates Spyware Alert System to Warn Victims of Mercenary Attacks

Apple on Wednesday revised its documentation pertaining to its mercenary spyware threat notification system to mention that it alerts users when they may have been individually targeted by such attacks. It also specifically called out companies like NSO Group for developing commercial surveillance tools such as Pegasus that are used by state actors to pull off "individually targeted

Hands-on Review: Cynomi AI-powered vCISO Platform

The need for vCISO services is growing. SMBs and SMEs are dealing with more third-party risks, tightening regulatory demands and stringent cyber insurance requirements than ever before. However, they often lack the resources and expertise to hire an in-house security executive team. By outsourcing security and compliance leadership to a vCISO, these organizations can more easily obtain

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

Considerations for Operational Technology Cybersecurity

Operational Technology (OT) refers to the hardware and software used to change, monitor, or control the enterprise's physical devices, processes, and events. Unlike traditional Information Technology (IT) systems, OT systems directly impact the physical world. This unique characteristic of OT brings additional cybersecurity considerations not typically present in conventional IT security

Attack Surface Management vs. Vulnerability Management

Attack surface management (ASM) and vulnerability management (VM) are often confused, and while they overlap, they’re not the same. The main difference between attack surface management and vulnerability management is in their scope: vulnerability management checks a list of known assets, while attack surface management assumes you have unknown assets and so begins with discovery. Let’s look at

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 "

Dormakaba Locks Used in Millions of Hotel Rooms Could Be Cracked in Seconds

Security vulnerabilities discovered in Dormakaba's Saflok electronic RFID locks used in hotels could be weaponized by threat actors to forge keycards and stealthily slip into locked rooms. The shortcomings have been collectively named Unsaflok by researchers Lennert Wouters, Ian Carroll, rqu, BusesCanFly, Sam Curry, sshell, and Will Caruana. They were reported to the Zurich-based

TheMoon Botnet Resurfaces, Exploiting EoL Devices to Power Criminal Proxy

A botnet previously considered to be rendered inert has been observed enslaving end-of-life (EoL) small home/small office (SOHO) routers and IoT devices to fuel a criminal proxy service called Faceless. "TheMoon, which emerged in 2014, has been operating quietly while growing to over 40,000 bots from 88 countries in January and February of 2024," the Black Lotus Labs team at Lumen

The Golden Age of Automated Penetration Testing is Here

Network penetration testing plays a vital role in detecting vulnerabilities that can be exploited. The current method of performing pen testing is pricey, leading many companies to undertake it only when necessary, usually once a year for their compliance requirements. This manual approach often misses opportunities to find and fix security issues early on, leaving businesses vulnerable to

Finland Blames Chinese Hacking Group APT31 for Parliament Cyber Attack

The Police of Finland (aka Poliisi) has formally accused a Chinese nation-state actor tracked as APT31 for orchestrating a cyber attack targeting the country's Parliament in 2020. The intrusion, per the authorities, is said to have occurred between fall 2020 and early 2021. The agency described the ongoing criminal probe as both demanding and time-consuming, involving extensive analysis of a "

Telegram Offers Premium Subscription in Exchange for Using Your Number to Send OTPs

In June 2017, a study of more than 3,000 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) students published by the National Bureau for Economic Research (NBER) found that 98% of them were willing to give away their friends' email addresses in exchange for free pizza. "Whereas people say they care about privacy, they are willing to relinquish private data quite easily when

Critical Unpatched Ray AI Platform Vulnerability Exploited for Cryptocurrency Mining

Cybersecurity researchers are warning that threat actors are actively exploiting a "disputed" and unpatched vulnerability in an open-source artificial intelligence (AI) platform called Anyscale Ray to hijack computing power for illicit cryptocurrency mining. "This vulnerability allows attackers to take over the companies' computing power and leak sensitive data," Oligo Security researchers Avi

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

N. Korea-linked Kimsuky Shifts to Compiled HTML Help Files in Ongoing Cyberattacks

The North Korea-linked threat actor known as Kimsuky (aka Black Banshee, Emerald Sleet, or Springtail) has been observed shifting its tactics, leveraging Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files as vectors to deliver malware for harvesting sensitive data. Kimsuky, active since at least 2012, is known to target entities located in South Korea as well as North America, Asia, and Europe. According

Implementing Zero Trust Controls for Compliance

The ThreatLocker® Zero Trust Endpoint Protection Platform implements a strict deny-by-default, allow-by-exception security posture to give organizations the ability to set policy-based controls within their environment and mitigate countless cyber threats, including zero-days, unseen network footholds, and malware attacks as a direct result of user error. With the capabilities of the

Russian Hackers May Have Targeted Ukrainian Telecoms with Upgraded 'AcidPour' Malware

The data wiping malware called AcidPour may have been deployed in attacks targeting four telecom providers in Ukraine, new findings from SentinelOne show. The cybersecurity firm also confirmed connections between the malware and AcidRain, tying it to threat activity clusters associated with Russian military intelligence. "AcidPour's expanded capabilities would enable it to better

Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

When you read reports about cyber-attacks affecting operational technology (OT), it’s easy to get caught up in the hype and assume every single one is sophisticated. But are OT environments all over the world really besieged by a constant barrage of complex cyber-attacks? Answering that would require breaking down the different types of OT cyber-attacks and then looking back on all the

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

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

Suspected Russian Data-Wiping 'AcidPour' Malware Targeting Linux x86 Devices

A new variant of a data wiping malware called AcidRain has been detected in the wild that's specifically designed for targeting Linux x86 devices. The malware, dubbed AcidPour, is compiled for Linux x86 devices, SentinelOne's Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade said in a series of posts on X. "The new variant [...] is an ELF binary compiled for x86 (not MIPS) and while it refers to similar devices/

Fortra Patches Critical RCE Vulnerability in FileCatalyst Transfer Tool

Fortra has released details of a now-patched critical security flaw impacting its FileCatalyst file transfer solution that could allow unauthenticated attackers to gain remote code execution on susceptible servers. Tracked as CVE-2024-25153, the shortcoming carries a CVSS score of 9.8 out of a maximum of 10. "A directory traversal within the 'ftpservlet' of the FileCatalyst Workflow

GhostRace – New Data Leak Vulnerability Affects Modern CPUs

A group of researchers has discovered a new data leakage attack impacting modern CPU architectures supporting speculative execution. Dubbed GhostRace (CVE-2024-2193), it is a variation of the transient execution CPU vulnerability known as Spectre v1 (CVE-2017-5753). The approach combines speculative execution and race conditions. "All the common synchronization primitives implemented

Third-Party ChatGPT Plugins Could Lead to Account Takeovers

Cybersecurity researchers have found that third-party plugins available for OpenAI ChatGPT could act as a new attack surface for threat actors looking to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data. According to new research published by Salt Labs, security flaws found directly in ChatGPT and within the ecosystem could allow attackers to install malicious plugins without users' consent

LockBit Ransomware Hacker Ordered to Pay $860,000 After Guilty Plea in Canada

A 34-year-old Russian-Canadian national has been sentenced to nearly four years in jail in Canada for his participation in the LockBit global ransomware operation. Mikhail Vasiliev, an Ontario resident, was originally arrested in November 2022 and charged by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) with "conspiring with others to intentionally damage protected computers and to transmit

3 Things CISOs Achieve with Cato

Being a CISO is a balancing act: ensuring organizations are secure without compromising users’ productivity. This requires taking multiple elements into consideration, like cost, complexity, performance and user experience. CISOs around the globe use Cato SSE 360, as part of the Cato SASE Cloud platform to balance these factors without compromise. This article details how CISOs are

Microsoft's March Updates Fix 61 Vulnerabilities, Including Critical Hyper-V Flaws

Microsoft on Tuesday released its monthly security update, addressing 61 different security flaws spanning its software, including two critical issues impacting Windows Hyper-V that could lead to denial-of-service (DoS) and remote code execution. Of the 61 vulnerabilities, two are rated Critical, 58 are rated Important, and one is rated Low in severity. None of the flaws are listed as

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

Microsoft Confirms Russian Hackers Stole Source Code, Some Customer Secrets

Microsoft on Friday revealed that the Kremlin-backed threat actor known as Midnight Blizzard (aka APT29 or Cozy Bear) managed to gain access to some of its source code repositories and internal systems following a hack that came to light in January 2024. "In recent weeks, we have seen evidence that Midnight Blizzard is using information initially exfiltrated from our

QEMU Emulator Exploited as Tunneling Tool to Breach Company Network

Threat actors have been observed leveraging the QEMU open-source hardware emulator as tunneling software during a cyber attack targeting an unnamed "large company" to connect to their infrastructure. While a number of legitimate tunneling tools like Chisel, FRP, ligolo, ngrok, and Plink have been used by adversaries to their advantage, the development marks the first QEMU that has been

How Cybercriminals are Exploiting India's UPI for Money Laundering Operations

Cybercriminals are using a network of hired money mules in India using an Android-based application to orchestrate a massive money laundering scheme. The malicious application, called XHelper, is a "key tool for onboarding and managing these money mules," CloudSEK researchers Sparsh Kulshrestha, Abhishek Mathew, and Santripti Bhujel said in a report. Details about the scam 

U.S. Court Orders NSO Group to Hand Over Pegasus Spyware Code to WhatsApp

A U.S. judge has ordered NSO Group to hand over its source code for Pegasus and other remote access trojans to Meta as part of the social media giant's ongoing litigation against the Israeli spyware vendor. The decision marks a major legal victory for Meta, which filed the lawsuit in October 2019 for using its infrastructure to distribute the spyware to

U.S. Charges Iranian Hacker, Offers $10 Million Reward for Capture

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Friday unsealed an indictment against an Iranian national for his alleged involvement in a multi-year cyber-enabled campaign designed to compromise U.S. governmental and private entities. More than a dozen entities are said to have been targeted, including the U.S. Departments of the Treasury and State, defense contractors that support U.S. Department of

4 Instructive Postmortems on Data Downtime and Loss

More than a decade ago, the concept of the ‘blameless’ postmortem changed how tech companies recognize failures at scale. John Allspaw, who coined the term during his tenure at Etsy, argued postmortems were all about controlling our natural reaction to an incident, which is to point fingers: “One option is to assume the single cause is incompetence and scream at engineers to make them

Five Eyes Agencies Warn of Active Exploitation of Ivanti Gateway Vulnerabilities

The Five Eyes (FVEY) intelligence alliance has issued a new cybersecurity advisory warning of cyber threat actors exploiting known security flaws in Ivanti Connect Secure and Ivanti Policy Secure gateways, noting that the Integrity Checker Tool (ICT) can be deceived to provide a false sense of security. "Ivanti ICT is not sufficient to detect compromise and that a cyber threat actor may be able

President Biden Blocks Mass Transfer of Personal Data to High-Risk Nations

U.S. President Joe Biden has issued an Executive Order that prohibits the mass transfer of citizens' personal data to countries of concern. The Executive Order also "provides safeguards around other activities that can give those countries access to Americans' sensitive data," the White House said in a statement. This includes sensitive information such as genomic data, biometric data,

From Alert to Action: How to Speed Up Your SOC Investigations

Processing alerts quickly and efficiently is the cornerstone of a Security Operations Center (SOC) professional's role. Threat intelligence platforms can significantly enhance their ability to do so. Let's find out what these platforms are and how they can empower analysts. The Challenge: Alert Overload The modern SOC faces a relentless barrage of security alerts generated by SIEMs and EDRs.

Three Tips to Protect Your Secrets from AI Accidents

Last year, the Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) published multiple versions of the "OWASP Top 10 For Large Language Models," reaching a 1.0 document in August and a 1.1 document in October. These documents not only demonstrate the rapidly evolving nature of Large Language Models, but the evolving ways in which they can be attacked and defended. We're going to talk in this

Researchers Detail Apple's Recent Zero-Click Shortcuts Vulnerability

Details have emerged about a now-patched high-severity security flaw in Apple's Shortcuts app that could permit a shortcut to access sensitive information on the device without users' consent. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-23204 (CVSS score: 7.5), was addressed by Apple on January 22, 2024, with the release of iOS 17.3, iPadOS 17.3, macOS Sonoma 14.3, and 

Cybersecurity for Healthcare—Diagnosing the Threat Landscape and Prescribing Solutions for Recovery

On Thanksgiving Day 2023, while many Americans were celebrating, hospitals across the U.S. were doing quite the opposite. Systems were failing. Ambulances were diverted. Care was impaired. Hospitals in three states were hit by a ransomware attack, and in that moment, the real-world repercussions came to light—it wasn’t just computer networks that were brought to a halt, but actual patient

Signal Introduces Usernames, Allowing Users to Keep Their Phone Numbers Private

End-to-end encrypted (E2EE) messaging app Signal said it’s piloting a new feature that allows users to create unique usernames (not to be confused with profile names) and keep the phone numbers away from prying eyes. “If you use Signal, your phone number will no longer be visible to everyone you chat with by default,” Signal’s Randall Sarafa said. “People who have your number saved in their

Microsoft, OpenAI Warn of Nation-State Hackers Weaponizing AI for Cyber Attacks

Nation-state actors associated with Russia, North Korea, Iran, and China are experimenting with artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs) to complement their ongoing cyber attack operations. The findings come from a report published by Microsoft in collaboration with OpenAI, both of which said they disrupted efforts made by five state-affiliated actors that used its

Cybersecurity Tactics FinServ Institutions Can Bank On in 2024

The landscape of cybersecurity in financial services is undergoing a rapid transformation. Cybercriminals are exploiting advanced technologies and methodologies, making traditional security measures obsolete. The challenges are compounded for community banks that must safeguard sensitive financial data against the same level of sophisticated threats as larger institutions, but often with more

Microsoft Introduces Linux-Like 'sudo' Command to Windows 11

Microsoft said it's introducing Sudo for Windows 11 as part of an early preview version to help users execute commands with administrator privileges. "Sudo for Windows is a new way for users to run elevated commands directly from an unelevated console session," Microsoft Product Manager Jordi Adoumie said. "It is an ergonomic and familiar solution for users who want to elevate a command

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

Stealthy Zardoor Backdoor Targets Saudi Islamic Charity Organization

An unnamed Islamic non-profit organization in Saudi Arabia has been targeted as part of a stealthy cyber espionage campaign designed to drop a previously undocumented backdoor called Zardoor. Cisco Talos, which discovered the activity in May 2023, said the campaign has likely persisted since at least March 2021, adding it has identified only one compromised target to date, although it's