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Three security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in operational technology (OT) products from Wago and Schneider Electric. The flaws, per Forescout, are part of a  broader   set  of  shortcomings  collectively called  OT:ICEFALL , which now comprises a total of 61 issues spanning 13 different vendors. "OT:ICEFALL demonstrates the need for tighter scrutiny of, and improvements to, processes related to secure design, patching and testing in OT device vendors," the company  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. The most severe of the flaws is  CVE-2022-46680  (CVSS score: 8.8), which concerns the plaintext transmission of credentials in the ION/TCP protocol used by power meters from Schneider Electric. Successful exploitation of the bug could enable threat actors to gain control of vulnerable devices. It's worth noting that CVE-2022-46680 is one among the 56 flaws  originally unearthed  by Forescout in June 2022. The other two new security holes ( CVE-2023

Cybersecurity experts all echo the same thing – cyber attacks are going to get more rampant, and they will continue to pose severe threats against all technology users. Businesses, in particular, have become prime targets for cybercriminals due to the nature of data and information they process and store. 2018 saw a slew of data breaches targeting large enterprises that resulted in the theft of the personal and financial records of millions of customers. Falling victim to cyber attacks can deal with a major financial blow to businesses as the cost of dealing with an attack has risen to $1.1 million on the average. It can even be more devastating for small to medium-sized businesses. 60 percent of these smaller operations close within six months after failing to recover from cyber attacks. But aside from these monetary costs, companies can also lose credibility and their customers' confidence. Needless to say, businesses must improve the protection of their infrastructures

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 a larger role in software development is one of the big uncertainties related to this brave new world. In an era where AI promises to revolutionize how we live and work, the conversation about its security implications cannot be sidelined. As we increasingly rely on AI for tasks ranging from mundane to mission-critical, the question is no longer just, "Can AI  boost cybersecurity ?" (sure!), but also "Can AI  be hacked? " (yes!), "Can one use AI  to hack? " (of course!), and "Will AI  produce secure software ?" (well…). This thought leadership article is about the latter. Cydrill  (a

The most precious asset in today's information age is the secret safeguarded under lock and key. Regrettably, maintaining secrets has become increasingly challenging, as highlighted by the  2023 State of Secrets Sprawl  report, the largest analysis of public GitHub activity.  The report shows a  67% year-over-year increase  in the number of secrets found, with 10 million hard-coded secrets detected in 2022 alone. This alarming surge in secrets sprawl highlights  the need for action  and underscores the importance of secure software development. Secrets sprawl refers to secrets appearing in plaintext in various sources, such as source code, build scripts, infrastructure as code, logs, etc. While secrets like API tokens and private keys securely connect the components of the modern software supply chain, their widespread distribution among developers, machines, applications, and infrastructure systems heightens the likelihood of leaks. Cybersecurity Incidents Highlight the Danger

One of the most popular content management systems, Drupal , is warning its users to consider their websites as compromised unless their sites were updated immediately with a security patch released on 15 October 2014. Drupal is an open source software package which provides a Content management system (CMS) for websites including MTV, Popular Science, Sony Music, Harvard and MIT. Drupal is used to power roughly 1 billion websites on Internet, which puts Drupal in third place behind the juggernaut Wordpress and then Joomla. Drupal's security team has released a " public service announcement " on Wednesday for its users to warn them of the SQL injection attack revealed two weeks ago, compromising almost 12 million of the widely used Drupal 7 websites. Users are asked to immediately update their websites to Drupal 7.32 within seven hours of the announcement of the vulnerability. " Automated attacks began compromising Drupal 7 websites that were not patched

Reality Based Cyber Crime Novella Explores Aftermath of Stuxnet Attack On Iran GRAND RAPIDS – Cyber Styletto is a new novella by a journalist, a writer, and a security expert who have pooled their talents to create an enthralling good read that is future forward and predictive. The facts are based on real vulnerabilities in the way the Internet is constructed. Recent cyber security attacks using sophisticated malware (think Stuxnet) and social engineering techniques have raised the bar for defenders. Cyber Styletto pivots off these cyber events to educate and entertain. It is written as fact-based fiction. The story comes from the minds of Gian DeTorre and Mike Brennan. DeTorre is the pen name of an award winning fiction writer and literary critic whose stories and reviews have been published worldwide. " Cyber Styletto is a new genre in literature, bringing the modern, secretive world of cyber espionage together with a good, old-fashioned thriller ," DeTorre said. I hope our a

It seems like the new American President's Twitter account could easily be hacked due to security blunders he made with the most powerful Twitter account in the world, experts warned. Days after we got to know that the newly inaugurated President Donald Trump was still using his old, insecure Android smartphone, it has now been revealed that the official @POTUS Twitter account was linked to a private Gmail account. Since we are already aware of the potential scandal with government officials using outside email systems following the hack of private e-mail servers of Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush , the choice of using private, non-government email address by Trump has raised serious concerns about the security of the White House's closely watched account. To gain control of the official @POTUS Twitter account, which may or may not is secured with some form of two-factor authentication , all an attacker needs to do is hack the email address associated with the acc

We have a lot of information on Stuxnet virus, a powerful malware that for the first time has shown to governments the capabilities and efficiency of a cyber weapon. Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of Kasperky security firm revealed that Stuxnet had badly infected the internal network of a Russian nuclear plant, according to the information he obtained from an unnamed staffer at the Nuclear Plant. " So unfortunately these people who were responsible for offensive technologies, they recognize cyber weapons as an opportunity ." Kaspersky said. During a presentation given at the Canberra Press Club, Kaspersky provided an excellent overview on the security of cyberspace, in particular highlighting the effect of the activities of state-sponsored espionage and cyber crime. " All the data is stolen, " Kaspersky said. " At least twice ." The malware Stuxnet is widely considered to have been developed by the US Government in a joint work with Israel c

$30 Child Toy is enough to hack FBI Radios The portable radios used by many federal law enforcement agents have major security flaws that allowed researchers to intercept hundreds of hours of sensitive traffic sent without encryption over the past two years, according to a new study being released today. A new report on the findings has been released by team leader and computer science professor Matt Blaze from the University of Pennsylvania. That details how a child's toy, the $30 IM Me can be used to jam radios used by the FBI and Homeland Security. " We monitored sensitive transmissions about operations by agents in every Federal law enforcement agency in the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, " wrote the researchers, who were led by computer science professor Matt Blaze and plan to reveal their findings Wednesday in a paper at the Usenix Security Symposium in San Francisco. Members of the research group say they have contacted the Department of Ju

As many as 23 new high severity security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in different implementations of Unified Extensible Firmware Interface ( UEFI ) firmware used by numerous vendors, including Bull Atos, Fujitsu, HP, Juniper Networks, Lenovo, among others. The vulnerabilities reside in Insyde Software's InsydeH2O UEFI firmware, according to enterprise firmware security company  Binarly , with a majority of the anomalies diagnosed in the System Management Mode ( SMM ). UEFI is a software specification that provides a standard programming interface connecting a computer's firmware to its operating system during the booting process. In x86 systems, the UEFI firmware is usually stored in the flash memory chip of the motherboard. "By exploiting these vulnerabilities, attackers can successfully install malware that survives operating system re-installations and allows the bypass of endpoint security solutions (EDR/AV),  Secure Boot , and Virtualization-Based Securit

In an effort to secure users' data while maintaining privacy, Google has announced a new security measure for Android Backup Service that now encrypts all your backup data stored on its cloud servers in a way that even the company can't read it. Google allows Android users to automatically backup their essential app data and settings to their Google account, allowing them to simply restore it when required, instead of re-configuring all the apps after formatting or switching to a new phone. However, until now your backup data was not encrypted and visible to Google, and now the company is going to change its storage procedure. Starting with Android Pie, Google is going to encrypt your Android device backup data in the following way: Step 1: Your Android device will generate a random secret key (not known to Google), Step 2: The secret key will then get encrypted using your lockscreen PIN/pattern/passcode (not known to Google), Step 3: This passcode-protected

Unknown hackers have broken into the security networks of Lockheed Martin Corp and several other U.S. military contractors, a source with direct knowledge of the attacks told Reuters. They breached security systems designed to keep out intruders by creating duplicates to "SecurID" electronic keys from EMC Corp's RSA security division, said the person who was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter. It was not immediately clear what kind of data, if any, was stolen by the hackers. But the networks of Lockheed and other military contractors contain sensitive data on future weapons systems as well as military technology currently used in battles in Iraq and Afghanistan. Weapons makers are the latest companies to be breached through sophisticated attacks that have pierced the defenses of huge corporations including Sony, Google Inc and EMC Corp. Security experts say that it is virtually impossible for any company or government agency to build a security network th

McAfee is making security predictions for 2011. The firm outlines its top threats for next year in the 2011 Threat Predictions report -- and Android, iPhone, Foursquare, Google TV, and Mac OS X are listed as major cybercrime targets. Politically motivated attacks are also expected to increase, a la WikiLeaks. "We've seen significant advancements in device and social-network adoption, placing a bullseye on the platforms and services users are embracing the most," said Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs. "These platforms and services have become very popular in a short amount of time, and we're already seeing a significant increase in vulnerabilities, attacks and data loss." Social-Media Threats Social-media threats are nothing new, but expect to see more of them next year. McAfee Labs expects social-media services that use URL shortening will be under attack because its easier for cybercriminals to mask the full URL and direct users to m

Super Cryptography : The Next Generation Encryption The next generation of encryption technologies meets this need by using Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) to replace RSA and DH, and using Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) block cipher for high-speed authenticated encryption. Elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) is an approach to public-key cryptography based on the algebraic structure of elliptic curves over finite fields. The use of elliptic curves in cryptography was suggested independently by Neal Koblitz and Victor S. Miller in 1985. According to Cisco ," New algorithms for encryption, authentication, digital signatures, and key exchange are needed to meet escalating security and performance requirements ". A 244-bit ECC key has the equivalent strength of a 2048-bit RSA key for security; a 384-bit ECC key matches a 7680-bit RSA key. Greater strength for any given key length enables the use of shorter keys, resulting in significantly l

A Palestinian Web Developer and Hacker, ' Khalil Shreateh ' found an interesting  vulnerability in Facebook, that allows hacker to bypass the Privacy settings to make a post on anyone's Timeline / Wall. He was forced to post vulnerability details on Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook Founder) Timeline to prove his point, after the Facebook Security Team failed to recognize his critical vulnerability three times. The flaw even working for those victims, who is not included in the attacker friend list.  According to Facebook's Bug Bounty program, a researcher has to submit the flaw details via email to Facebook Security Team without disclosing the details in Public. In order to get the minimum reward of US$500, the flaw should be valid. The reported vulnerability is in " composer.php " file on Facebook mechanism. First Khalil made a post on the timeline of a girl, " Sarah Gooden " who studied at the same college as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerbe

In any organization, there are certain accounts that are designated as being privileged. These privileged accounts differ from standard user accounts in that they have permission to perform actions that go beyond what standard users can do. The actions vary based on the nature of the account but can include anything from setting up new user accounts to shutting down mission-critical systems. Privileged accounts are essential tools. Without these accounts, the IT staff would be unable to do its job. At the same time, privileged accounts can pose a serious threat to an organization's security. Added risk of a privileged account  Imagine for a moment that a hacker manages to steal a standard user's password and is able to log in as that user. Even though the hacker would have access to certain resources at that point, they would be constrained by the user's privileges (or lack thereof). In other words, the hacker would be able to browse the Internet, open some applications, and access

Microsoft today released security updates to fix a total of 115 new security vulnerabilities in various versions of its Windows operating system and related software—making March 2020 edition the biggest ever Patch Tuesday in the company's history. Of the 115 bugs spanning its various products — Microsoft Windows, Edge browser, Internet Explorer, Exchange Server, Office, Azure, Windows Defender, and Visual Studio — that received new patches, 26 have been rated as critical, 88 received a severity of important, and one is moderate in severity. However, unlike last month , none of the vulnerabilities the tech giant patched this month are listed as being publicly known or under active attack at the time of release. It's worth highlighting that the patch addresses critical flaws that could be potentially exploited by bad actors to execute malicious code by specially crafted LNK files and word documents. Titled "LNK Remote Code Execution Vulnerability" ( CVE-2020

Google has released its monthly security updates for the Android operating system, addressing 46 new software vulnerabilities. Among these, three vulnerabilities have been identified as actively exploited in targeted attacks. One of the vulnerabilities tracked as CVE-2023-26083 is a memory leak flaw affecting the Arm Mali GPU driver for Bifrost, Avalon, and Valhall chips. This particular vulnerability was exploited in a previous attack that enabled spyware infiltration on Samsung devices in December 2022. This vulnerability was regarded as serious enough to prompt the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to issue a patching order for federal agencies in April 2023. Another significant vulnerability, identified as CVE-2021-29256, is a high-severity issue that affects specific versions of the Bifrost and Midgard Arm Mali GPU kernel drivers. This flaw permits an unprivileged user to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data and escalate privileges to the root lev

A team of security researchers has discovered another serious side-channel vulnerability in Intel CPUs that could allow an attacker to sniff out sensitive protected data, like passwords and cryptographic keys, from other processes running in the same CPU core with simultaneous multi-threading feature enabled. The vulnerability, codenamed PortSmash (CVE-2018-5407), has joined the list of other dangerous side-channel vulnerabilities discovered in the past year, including Meltdown and Spectre , TLBleed , and Foreshadow . Discovered by a team of security researchers from the Tampere University of Technology in Finland and Technical University of Havana, Cuba, the new side-channel vulnerability resides in Intel's Hyper-Threading technology, the company's implementation of Simultaneous MultiThreading (SMT). Simultaneous MultiThreading is a performance feature that works by splitting up each physical core of a processor into virtual cores, known as threads, allowing each core to

Security researchers have discovered a nasty security vulnerability that is said to affect almost every version of Windows and Samba and will be patched on April 12, 2016, the Samba development team announced Tuesday. So, Save the Date if you are a Windows or Samba file server administrator. Samba is a free, open source implementation of the SMB/CIFS network file sharing protocol that runs on the majority of operating systems available today, including Windows, UNIX, Linux, IBM System 390, and OpenVMS. Samba allows non-Windows operating systems, like GNU/Linux or Mac OS X, to communicate with the same networking protocol as the Windows products, thus enabling users to access network shared folders and files from Windows OS. Dubbed Badlock , the vulnerability has been discovered by Stefan Metzmacher, a developer of Samba Core Team. Details about the Badlock vulnerability will be disclosed on April 12, when the developers of Microsoft and Samba release security p

Developers of phpMyAdmin, one of the most popular and widely used MySQL database management systems, today released an updated version 4.8.4 of its software to patch several important vulnerabilities that could eventually allow remote attackers to take control of the affected web servers. The phpMyAdmin project last Sunday gave an early heads-up about the latest security update through its blog, probably the first time, as an experiment to find if pre-announcements can help website admins, hosting providers and package managers better prepare for the security release. "We are inspired by the workflow of other projects (such as Mediawiki and others) which often announce any security release in advance to allow package maintainers and hosting providers to prepare. We are experimenting to see if such a workflow is suitable for our project," phpMyAdmin release manager Isaac Bennetch told The Hacker News. phpMyAdmin is a free, open-source administration tool for managing