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

Bogus npm Packages Used to Trick Software Developers into Installing Malware

An ongoing social engineering campaign is targeting software developers with bogus npm packages under the guise of a job interview to trick them into downloading a Python backdoor. Cybersecurity firm Securonix is tracking the activity under the name DEV#POPPER, linking it to North Korean threat actors. "During these fraudulent interviews, the developers are often asked

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,

Critical 'BatBadBut' Rust Vulnerability Exposes Windows Systems to Attacks

A critical security flaw in the Rust standard library could be exploited to target Windows users and stage command injection attacks. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-24576, has a CVSS score of 10.0, indicating maximum severity. That said, it only impacts scenarios where batch files are invoked on Windows with untrusted arguments. "The Rust standard library did not properly escape

Behind the Scenes: The Art of Safeguarding Non-Human Identities

In the whirlwind of modern software development, teams race against time, constantly pushing the boundaries of innovation and efficiency. This relentless pace is fueled by an evolving tech landscape, where SaaS domination, the proliferation of microservices, and the ubiquity of CI/CD pipelines are not just trends but the new norm. Amidst this backdrop, a critical aspect subtly weaves into the

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

New "GoFetch" Vulnerability in Apple M-Series Chips Leaks Secret Encryption Keys

A new security shortcoming discovered in Apple M-series chips could be exploited to extract secret keys used during cryptographic operations. Dubbed GoFetch, the vulnerability relates to a microarchitectural side-channel attack that takes advantage of a feature known as data memory-dependent prefetcher (DMP) to target constant-time cryptographic implementations and capture sensitive data

Over 800 npm Packages Found with Discrepancies, 18 Exploit 'Manifest Confusion'

New research has discovered over 800 packages in the npm registry which have discrepancies from their registry entries, out of which 18 have been found to exploit a technique called manifest confusion. The findings come from cybersecurity firm JFrog, which said the issue could be exploited by threat actors to trick developers into running malicious code. "It's an actual threat since

GitHub Launches AI-Powered Autofix Tool to Assist Devs in Patching Security Flaws

GitHub on Wednesday announced that it's making available a feature called code scanning autofix in public beta for all Advanced Security customers to provide targeted recommendations in an effort to avoid introducing new security issues. "Powered by GitHub Copilot and CodeQL, code scanning autofix covers more than 90% of alert types in JavaScript, Typescript, Java, and

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:

APIs Drive the Majority of Internet Traffic and Cybercriminals are Taking Advantage

Application programming interfaces (APIs) are the connective tissue behind digital modernization, helping applications and databases exchange data more effectively. The State of API Security in 2024 Report from Imperva, a Thales company, found that the majority of internet traffic (71%) in 2023 was API calls. What’s more, a typical enterprise site saw an average of 1.5 billion API

GitHub Rolls Out Default Secret Scanning Push Protection for Public Repositories

GitHub on Thursday announced that it’s enabling secret scanning push protection by default for all pushes to public repositories. “This means that when a supported secret is detected in any push to a public repository, you will have the option to remove the secret from your commits or, if you deem the secret safe, bypass the block,” Eric Tooley and Courtney Claessens said. Push protection&

Lazarus Exploits Typos to Sneak PyPI Malware into Dev Systems

The notorious North Korean state-backed hacking group Lazarus uploaded four packages to the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository with the goal of infecting developer systems with malware. The packages, now taken down, are pycryptoenv, pycryptoconf, quasarlib, and swapmempool. They have been collectively downloaded 3,269 times, with pycryptoconf accounting for the most

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 

Critical Boot Loader Vulnerability in Shim Impacts Nearly All Linux Distros

The maintainers of shim have released version 15.8 to address six security flaws, including a critical bug that could pave the way for remote code execution under specific circumstances. Tracked as CVE-2023-40547 (CVSS score: 9.8), the vulnerability could be exploited to achieve a Secure Boot bypass. Bill Demirkapi of the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) has been&

New Glibc Flaw Grants Attackers Root Access on Major Linux Distros

Malicious local attackers can obtain full root access on Linux machines by taking advantage of a newly disclosed security flaw in the GNU C library (aka glibc). Tracked as CVE-2023-6246 (CVSS score: 7.8), the heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability is rooted in glibc's __vsyslog_internal() function, which is used by syslog() and vsyslog() for system logging purposes. It's said to have

URGENT: Upgrade GitLab - Critical Workspace Creation Flaw Allows File Overwrite

GitLab once again released fixes to address a critical security flaw in its Community Edition (CE) and Enterprise Edition (EE) that could be exploited to write arbitrary files while creating a workspace. Tracked as CVE-2024-0402, the vulnerability has a CVSS score of 9.9 out of a maximum of 10. "An issue has been discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions from 16.0 prior to

Russian TrickBot Mastermind Gets 5-Year Prison Sentence for Cybercrime Spree

40-year-old Russian national Vladimir Dunaev has been sentenced to five years and four months in prison for his role in creating and distributing the TrickBot malware, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said. The development comes nearly two months after Dunaev pleaded guilty to committing computer fraud and identity theft and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud. "

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

MavenGate Attack Could Let Hackers Hijack Java and Android via Abandoned Libraries

Several public and popular libraries abandoned but still used in Java and Android applications have been found susceptible to a new software supply chain attack method called MavenGate. "Access to projects can be hijacked through domain name purchases and since most default build configurations are vulnerable, it would be difficult or even impossible to know whether an attack was being performed

TensorFlow CI/CD Flaw Exposed Supply Chain to Poisoning Attacks

Continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) misconfigurations discovered in the open-source TensorFlow machine learning framework could have been exploited to orchestrate supply chain attacks. The misconfigurations could be abused by an attacker to "conduct a supply chain compromise of TensorFlow releases on GitHub and PyPi by compromising TensorFlow's build agents via

FTC Bans Outlogic (X-Mode) From Selling Sensitive Location Data

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Tuesday prohibited data broker Outlogic, which was previously known as X-Mode Social, from sharing or selling any sensitive location data with third-parties. The ban is part of a settlement over allegations that the company "sold precise location data that could be used to track people's visits to sensitive locations such as medical and

CacheWarp Attack: New Vulnerability in AMD SEV Exposes Encrypted VMs

A group of academics has disclosed a new "software fault attack" on AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) technology that could be potentially exploited by threat actors to infiltrate encrypted virtual machines (VMs) and even perform privilege escalation. The attack has been codenamed CacheWarp (CVE-2023-20592) by researchers from the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security and the

CI/CD Risks: Protecting Your Software Development Pipelines

Have you heard about Dependabot? If not, just ask any developer around you, and they'll likely rave about how it has revolutionized the tedious task of checking and updating outdated dependencies in software projects.  Dependabot not only takes care of the checks for you, but also provides suggestions for modifications that can be approved with just a single click. Although Dependabot is limited

Retool Falls Victim to SMS-Based Phishing Attack Affecting 27 Cloud Clients

Software development company Retool has disclosed that the accounts of 27 of its cloud customers were compromised following a targeted and SMS-based social engineering attack. The San Francisco-based firm blamed a Google Account cloud synchronization feature recently introduced in April 2023 for making the breach worse, calling it a "dark pattern." "The fact that Google Authenticator syncs to

Malicious npm Packages Aim to Target Developers for Source Code Theft

An unknown threat actor is leveraging malicious npm packages to target developers with an aim to steal source code and configuration files from victim machines, a sign of how threats lurk consistently in open-source repositories. "The threat actor behind this campaign has been linked to malicious activity dating back to 2021," software supply chain security firm Checkmarx said in a report shared

The 4 Keys to Building Cloud Security Programs That Can Actually Shift Left

As cloud applications are built, tested and updated, they wind their way through an ever-complex series of different tools and teams. Across hundreds or even thousands of technologies that make up the patchwork quilt of development and cloud environments, security processes are all too often applied in only the final phases of software development.  Placing security at the very end of the

How to Improve Your API Security Posture

APIs, more formally known as application programming interfaces, empower apps and microservices to communicate and share data. However, this level of connectivity doesn't come without major risks. Hackers can exploit vulnerabilities in APIs to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data or even take control of the entire system. Therefore, it's essential to have a robust API security posture to

Developer Alert: NPM Packages for Node.js Hiding Dangerous TurkoRat Malware

Two malicious packages discovered in the npm package repository have been found to conceal an open source information stealer malware called TurkoRat. The packages – named nodejs-encrypt-agent and nodejs-cookie-proxy-agent – were collectively downloaded approximately 1,200 times and were available for more than two months before they were identified and taken down. ReversingLabs, which broke

Tick APT Targeted High-Value Customers of East Asian Data-Loss Prevention Company

A cyberespionage actor known as Tick has been attributed with high confidence to a compromise of an East Asian data-loss prevention (DLP) company that caters to government and military entities. "The attackers compromised the DLP company's internal update servers to deliver malware inside the software developer's network, and trojanized installers of legitimate tools used by the company, which

Researchers Discover Malicious PyPI Package Posing as SentinelOne SDK to Steal Data

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new malicious package on the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that impersonates a software development kit (SDK) for SentinelOne, a major cybersecurity company, as part of a campaign dubbed SentinelSneak. The package, named SentinelOne and now taken down, is said to have been published between December 8 and 11, 2022, with nearly two dozen

Two Key Ways Development Teams Can Increase Their Security Maturity

Now more than ever, organizations need to enable their development teams to build and grow their security skills. Today organizations face a threat landscape where individuals, well-financed syndicates, and state actors are actively trying to exploit errors in software. Yet, according to recent global research, 67% of developers that were interviewed said they were still shipping code they knew