Cyber Security

The Office of the Washington State Auditor (SAO) on Monday said it’s investigating a security incident that resulted in the compromise of personal information of more than 1.6 million people who filed for unemployment claims in the state in 2020. The SAO blamed the breach on a software vulnerability in Accellion’s File Transfer Appliance (FTA)

Security researchers on Tuesday uncovered new delivery and evasion techniques adopted by Agent Tesla remote access trojan (RAT) to get around defense barriers and monitor its victims. Typically spread through social engineering lures, the Windows spyware not only now targets Microsoft’s Antimalware Scan Interface (AMSI) in an attempt to defeat endpoint protection software, it also

SonicWall on Monday warned of active exploitation attempts against a zero-day vulnerability in its Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 100 series devices. The flaw, which affects both physical and virtual SMA 100 10.x devices (SMA 200, SMA 210, SMA 400, SMA 410, SMA 500v), came to light after the NCC Group on Sunday alerted it had

We likely all agree that 2020 was a year we won’t soon forget – for many reasons. One area particularly impacted last year was (and continues to be) cybersecurity. While Internet access allowed many businesses to continue functioning during the COVID-19 stay at home requirements, the unprecedented number of people accessing company assets remotely introduced

Cybersecurity researchers today disclosed a new supply chain attack compromising the update mechanism of NoxPlayer, a free Android emulator for PCs and Macs. Dubbed “Operation NightScout” by Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET, the highly-targeted surveillance campaign involved distributing three different malware families via tailored malicious updates to selected victims based in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Sri

A newly devised variant of the NAT Slipstreaming attack can be leveraged to compromise and expose any device in an internal network, according to the latest research. Detailed by enterprise IoT security firm Armis, the new attack (CVE-2020-16043 and CVE-2021-23961) builds on the previously disclosed technique to bypass routers and firewalls and reach any unmanaged

A “persistent attacker group” with alleged ties to Hezbollah has retooled its malware arsenal with a new version of a remote access Trojan (RAT) to break into companies worldwide and extract valuable information. In a new report published by the ClearSky research team on Thursday, the Israeli cybersecurity firm said it identified at least 250

Google Project Zero on Thursday disclosed details of a new security mechanism that Apple quietly added to iOS 14 as a countermeasure to prevent attacks that were recently found to leverage zero-days in its messaging app. Dubbed “BlastDoor,” the improved sandbox system for iMessage data was disclosed by Samuel Groß, a security researcher with Project

The pressure on small to medium-sized enterprises to protect their organizations against cyberthreats is astronomical. These businesses face the same threats as the largest enterprises, experience the same (relative) damages and consequences when breaches occur as the largest enterprises but are forced to protect their organizations with a fraction of the resources as the largest

Law enforcement agencies from as many as eight countries dismantled the infrastructure of Emotet, a notorious email-based Windows malware behind several botnet-driven spam campaigns and ransomware attacks over the past decade. The coordinated takedown of the botnet on Tuesday — dubbed “Operation Ladybird” — is the result of a joint effort between authorities in the

Researchers have disclosed a new family of Android malware that abuses accessibility services in the device to hijack user credentials and record audio and video. Dubbed “Oscorp” by Italy’s CERT-AGID, the malware “induce(s) the user to install an accessibility service with which [the attackers] can read what is present and what is typed on the

U.S. and Bulgarian authorities this week took control of the dark web site used by the NetWalker ransomware cybercrime group to publish data stolen from its victims. “We are striking back against the growing threat of ransomware by not only bringing criminal charges against the responsible actors, but also disrupting criminal online infrastructure and, wherever

Newly discovered security vulnerabilities in ADT’s Blue (formerly LifeShield) home security cameras could have been exploited to hijack both audio and video streams. The vulnerabilities (tracked as CVE-2020-8101) were identified in the video doorbell camera by Bitdefender researchers in February 2020 before they were eventually addressed on August 17, 2020. LifeShield was acquired by Florida-based

Cybersecurity researchers today disclosed an unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft Azure Functions that could be used by an attacker to escalate privileges and escape the Docker container used for hosting them. The findings come as part of Intezer Lab‘s investigations into the Azure compute infrastructure. Following disclosure to Microsoft, the Windows maker is said to have

With so much of the world transitioning to working, shopping, studying, and streaming online during the coronavirus pandemic, cybercriminals now have access to a larger base of potential victims than ever before. “Zoombomb” became the new photobomb—hackers would gain access to a private meeting or online class hosted on Zoom and shout profanities and racial

Most companies with small security teams face the same issues. They have inadequate budgets, inadequate staff, and inadequate skills to face today’s onslaught of sophisticated cyberthreats. Many of these companies turn to virtual CISOs (vCISOs) to provide security expertise and guidance. vCISOs are typically former CISOs with years of experience building and managing information security

Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday disclosed a now-patched security flaw in TikTok that could have potentially enabled an attacker to build a database of the app’s users and their associated phone numbers for future malicious activity. Although this flaw only impacts those users who have linked a phone number with their account or logged in with

An evolving phishing campaign observed at least since May 2020 has been found to target high-ranking company executives across manufacturing, real estate, finance, government, and technological sectors with the goal of obtaining sensitive information. The campaign hinges on a social engineering trick that involves sending emails to potential victims containing fake Office 365 password expiration

Over the years, penetration testing has had to change and adapt alongside the IT environments and technology that need to be assessed. Broad cybersecurity issues often influence the strategy and growth of pen-testing. In such a fast-paced field, organizations get real value from learning about others’ penetration testing experiences, identifying trends, and the role they

In 1982, when SMTP was first specified, it did not contain any mechanism for providing security at the transport level to secure communications between mail transfer agents. Later, in 1999, the STARTTLS command was added to SMTP that in turn supported the encryption of emails in between the servers, providing the ability to convert a

A newly discovered Android malware has been found to propagate itself through WhatsApp messages to other contacts in order to expand what appears to be an adware campaign. “This malware spreads via victim’s WhatsApp by automatically replying to any received WhatsApp message notification with a link to [a] malicious Huawei Mobile app,” ESET researcher Lukas

A new large-scale phishing campaign targeting global organizations has been found to bypass Microsoft Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) and steal credentials belonging to over a thousand corporate employees. The cyber offensive is said to have originated in August last year, with the attacks aimed specifically at energy and construction companies, said researchers from

SonicWall, a popular internet security provider of firewall and VPN products, on late Friday disclosed that it fell victim to a coordinated attack on its internal systems. The San Jose-based company said the attacks leveraged zero-day vulnerabilities in SonicWall secure remote access products such as NetExtender VPN client version 10.x and Secure Mobile Access (SMA)

More details have emerged about a security feature bypass vulnerability in Windows NT LAN Manager (NTLM) that was addressed by Microsoft as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday updates earlier this month. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2021-1678 (CVSS score 4.3), was described as a “remotely exploitable” flaw found in a vulnerable component bound to the

Cybersecurity researchers have warned of a publicly available fully-functional exploit that could be used to target SAP enterprise software. The exploit leverages a vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2020-6207, that stems from a missing authentication check in SAP Solution Manager (SolMan) version 7.2 SAP SolMan is an application management and administration solution that offers end-to-end application lifecycle

Like it or not, 2020 was the year that proved that teams could work from literally anywhere. While terms like “flex work” and “WFH” were thrown around before COVID-19 came around, thanks to the pandemic, remote working has become the defacto way people work nowadays. Today, digital-based work interactions take the place of in-person ones

Amazon has addressed a number of flaws in its Kindle e-reader platform that could have allowed an attacker to take control of victims’ devices by simply sending them a malicious e-book. Dubbed “KindleDrip,” the exploit chain takes advantage of a feature called “Send to Kindle” to send a malware-laced document to a Kindle device that,

When you are a startup, there are umpteen things that demand your attention. You must give your hundred percent (probably even more!) to work effectively and efficiently with the limited resources. Understandably, the application security importance may be pushed at the bottom of your things-to-do list. One other reason to ignore web application protectioncould be

Microsoft on Wednesday shared more specifics about the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) adopted by the attackers behind the SolarWinds hack to stay under the radar and avoid detection, as cybersecurity companies work towards getting a “clearer picture” of one of the most sophisticated attacks in recent history. Calling the threat actor “skillful and methodic

A relatively new crypto-mining malware that surfaced last year and infected thousands of Microsoft SQL Server (MSSQL) databases has now been linked to a small software development company based in Iran. The attribution was made possible due to an operational security oversight, said researchers from cybersecurity firm Sophos, that led to the company’s name inadvertently