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A recently disclosed critical security flaw impacting the Aviatrix Controller cloud networking platform has come under active exploitation in the wild to deploy backdoors and cryptocurrency miners. Cloud security firm Wiz said it's currently responding to "multiple incidents" involving the weaponization of CVE-2024-50603 (CVSS score: 10.0), a maximum severity bug that could result in unauthenticated remote code execution. Put differently, a successful exploitation of the flaw could permit an attacker to inject malicious operating system commands owing to the fact that certain API endpoints do not adequately sanitize user-supplied input. The vulnerability has been addressed in versions 7.1.4191 and 7.2.4996. Jakub Korepta, a security researcher at Polish cybersecurity company Securing, has been credited with discovering and reporting the shortcoming. A proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit has since been made publicly available . Data gathered by the cybersecurity company...

The cyber world's been buzzing this week, and it's all about staying ahead of the bad guys. From sneaky software bugs to advanced hacking tricks, the risks are real, but so are the ways to protect yourself. In this recap, we'll break down what's happening, why it matters, and what you can do to stay secure. Let's turn awareness into action and keep one step ahead of the threats. ⚡ Threat of the Week Critical Ivanti Flaw Comes Under Exploitation — A newly discovered critical security vulnerability in Ivanti Connect Secure appliances has been exploited as a zero-day since mid-December 2024. The flaw (CVE-2025-0282, CVSS score: 9.0) is a stack-based buffer overflow bug that could lead to unauthenticated remote code execution. According to Google-owned Mandiant, the flaw has been exploited to deploy the SPAWN ecosystem of malware – the SPAWNANT installer, SPAWNMOLE tunneler, and the SPAWNSNAIL SSH backdoor – as well as two other previou...

In 2024, ransomware attacks targeting VMware ESXi servers reached alarming levels, with the average ransom demand skyrocketing to $5 million. With approximately 8,000 ESXi hosts exposed directly to the internet (according to Shodan), the operational and business impact of these attacks is profound. Most of the Ransomware strands that are attacking ESXi servers nowadays, are variants of the infamous Babuk ransomware, adapted to avoid detection of security tools. Moreover, accessibility is becoming more widespread, as attackers monetize their entry points by selling Initial Access to other threat actors, including ransomware groups. As organizations are dealing with compounded threats on an ever-expanding front: new vulnerabilities, new entry points, monetized cyber-crime networks, and more, there is ever-growing urgency for enhanced security measures and vigilance. The architecture of ESXi Understanding how an attacker can gain control of the ESXi host begins with understanding the ...

Cybersecurity researchers are warning of a new stealthy credit card skimmer campaign that targets WordPress e-commerce checkout pages by inserting malicious JavaScript code into a database table associated with the content management system (CMS). "This credit card skimmer malware targeting WordPress websites silently injects malicious JavaScript into database entries to steal sensitive payment details," Sucuri researcher Puja Srivastava said in a new analysis. "The malware activates specifically on checkout pages, either by hijacking existing payment fields or injecting a fake credit card form." The GoDaddy-owned website security company said it discovered the malware embedded into the WordPress wp_options table with the option "widget_block," thus allowing it to avoid detection by scanning tools and persist on compromised sites without attracting attention. In doing so, the idea is to insert the malicious JavaScript into an HTML block widget thr...

No less than 4,000 unique web backdoors previously deployed by various threat actors have been hijacked by taking control of abandoned and expired infrastructure for as little as $20 per domain. Cybersecurity company watchTowr Labs said it pulled off the operation by registering over 40 domain names that the backdoors had been designed to use for command-and-control (C2). In partnership with the Shadowserver Foundation, the domains implicated in the research have been sinkholed. "We have been hijacking backdoors (that were reliant on now abandoned infrastructure and/or expired domains) that themselves existed inside backdoors, and have since been watching the results flood in," watchTowr Labs CEO Benjamin Harris and researcher Aliz Hammond said in a technical write-up last week. "This hijacking allowed us to track compromised hosts as they 'reported in,' and theoretically gave us the power to commandeer and control these compromised hosts." Among the ...

Microsoft has revealed that it's pursuing legal action against a "foreign-based threat–actor group" for operating a hacking-as-a-service infrastructure to intentionally get around the safety controls of its generative artificial intelligence (AI) services and produce offensive and harmful content. The tech giant's Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) said it has observed the threat actors "develop sophisticated software that exploited exposed customer credentials scraped from public websites," and "sought to identify and unlawfully access accounts with certain generative AI services and purposely alter the capabilities of those services." The adversaries then used these services, such as Azure OpenAI Service, and monetized the access by selling them to other malicious actors, providing them with detailed instructions as to how to use these custom tools to generate harmful content. Microsoft said it discovered the activity in July 2024. The Windows maker...

It's time once again to pay our respects to the once-famous cybersecurity solutions whose usefulness died in the past year. The cybercriminal world collectively mourns the loss of these solutions and the easy access they provide to victim organizations. These solutions, though celebrated in their prime, succumbed to the twin forces of time and advancing threats. Much like a tribute to celebrities lost in the past year, this article will look back at a few of cybersecurity's brightest stars that went dark in the past year.  1. Legacy Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Cause of Death: Compromised by sophisticated phishing, man-in-the-middle (MitM), SIM-swapping, and MFA prompt bombing attacks. The superstar of access security for more than twenty years, legacy MFA solutions enjoyed broad adoption followed by almost-universal responsibility for cybersecurity failures leading to successful ransomware attacks. These outdated solutions relied heavily on SMS or email-based codes o...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Friday indicted three Russian nationals for their alleged involvement in operating the cryptocurrency mixing services Blender.io and Sinbad.io. Roman Vitalyevich Ostapenko and Alexander Evgenievich Oleynik were arrested on December 1, 2024, in coordination with the Netherlands' Financial Intelligence and Investigative Service, Finland's National Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). It was not revealed from where they were apprehended. The third individual, Anton Vyachlavovich Tarasov, is still at large. The defendants have been accused of operating cryptocurrency mixers (aka tumblers) that served as safe havens for "laundering criminally derived funds," including the proceeds of ransomware and wire fraud, thereby allowing state-sponsored hacking groups and cybercriminals to profit off their malicious operations. Specifically, they allowed their paying users to send cryptocurrency to ...

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed a now-patched security flaw impacting Monkey's Audio (APE) decoder on Samsung smartphones that could lead to code execution. The high-severity vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-49415 (CVSS score: 8.1), affects Samsung devices running Android versions 12, 13, and 14. "Out-of-bounds write in libsaped.so prior to SMR Dec-2024 Release 1 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code," Samsung said in an advisory for the flaw released in December 2024 as part of its monthly security updates. "The patch adds proper input validation." Google Project Zero researcher Natalie Silvanovich, who discovered and reported the shortcoming, described it as requiring no user interaction to trigger (i.e., zero-click) and a "fun new attack surface" under specific conditions. Particularly, this works if Google Messages is configured for rich communication services ( RCS ), the default configuration on Galaxy S23 and S24 ph...

Cybersecurity reporting is a critical yet often overlooked opportunity for service providers managing cybersecurity for their clients, and specifically for virtual Chief Information Security Officers (vCISOs). While reporting is seen as a requirement for tracking cybersecurity progress, it often becomes bogged down with technical jargon, complex data, and disconnected spreadsheets that fail to resonate with decision-makers. The result? Clients who struggle to understand the value of your work and remain uncertain about their security posture. But what if reporting could be transformed into a strategic tool for aligning cybersecurity with business goals? What if your reports empowered clients, built trust, and showcased cybersecurity as a driver of business success? That's exactly the focus of Cynomi's new guide— " Taking the Pain Out of Cybersecurity Reporting: The Guide to Mastering vCISO Reports ." This resource helps vCISOs reimagine reporting as an opportunity to create value,...

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a nascent artificial intelligence (AI) assisted ransomware family called FunkSec that sprang forth in late 2024, and has claimed more than 85 victims to date. "The group uses double extortion tactics, combining data theft with encryption to pressure victims into paying ransoms," Check Point Research said in a new report shared with The Hacker News. "Notably, FunkSec demanded unusually low ransoms, sometimes as little as $10,000, and sold stolen data to third parties at reduced prices." FunkSec launched its data leak site (DLS) in December 2024 to "centralize" their ransomware operations, highlighting breach announcements, a custom tool to conduct distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, and a bespoke ransomware as part of a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model. A majority of the victims are located in the U.S., India, Italy, Brazil, Israel, Spain, and Mongolia. Check Point's analysis of the group...

Network segmentation remains a critical security requirement, yet organizations struggle with traditional approaches that demand extensive hardware investments, complex policy management, and disruptive network changes. Healthcare and manufacturing sectors face particular challenges as they integrate diverse endpoints – from legacy medical devices to IoT sensors – onto their production networks. These devices often lack robust security hardening, creating significant vulnerabilities that traditional segmentation solutions struggle to address. Elisity aims to solve these challenges through an innovative approach that leverages existing network infrastructure while providing identity-based microsegmentation at the network edge. Rather than requiring new hardware, agents or complex network redesigns, Elisity customers run a few lightweight virtual connectors (called Elisity Virtual Edge) to enforce security policies through organizations' current switching infrastructure. In this hands...