The Hacker News - Cybersecurity News and Analysis

A global spear-phishing campaign has been targeting organizations associated with the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines since September 2020, according to new research. Attributing the operation to a nation-state actor,  IBM Security X-Force researchers  said the attacks took aim at the vaccine cold chain, companies responsible for storing and delivering the COVID-19 vaccine at safe temperatures. The development has prompted the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to  issue an alert , urging Operation Warp Speed ( OWS ) organizations and companies involved in vaccine storage and transport to review the indicators of compromise (IoCs) and beef up their defenses. It is unclear whether any of the phishing attempts were successful, but the company said it has notified appropriate entities and authorities about this targeted attack. The phishing emails, dating to September, targeted organizations in Italy, Germany, South Korea, the Czech Republic, greater Europe

There is no question that attackers are going after your sensitive account data. Passwords have long been a target of those looking to compromise your environment. Why would an attacker take the long, complicated way if they have the keys to the front door? No matter how extensive your security solutions are, protecting the various systems in your environment, your organization may likely be an easy target without proper password security. An especially vulnerable type of password is a  breached password , a.k.a "pwned" password. What is a breached password? How do you discover breached passwords in your environment? How can organizations effectively protect their end-users from using these types of passwords? The Danger of Compromised Accounts The  IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report  2020 noted compromised credentials as one of the primary contributors to malicious data breaches in the report's key findings. It noted: "Stolen or compromised credentials were the

Cybersecurity researchers on Thursday disclosed details of a previously undiscovered in-memory Windows backdoor developed by a hacker-for-hire operation that can execute remotely malicious code and steal sensitive information from its targets in Asia, Europe, and the US. Dubbed " PowerPepper " by Kaspersky researchers, the malware has been attributed to the  DeathStalker  group (formerly called Deceptikons), a threat actor that has been found to hit law firms and companies in the financial sector located in Europe and the Middle East at least since 2012. The hacking tool is so-called because of its reliance on steganographic trickery to deliver the backdoor payload in the form of an image of ferns or peppers. The espionage group first came to light  earlier this July , with most of their attacks starting with a spear-phishing email containing a malicious modified LNK (shortcut) file that, when clicked, downloads and runs a PowerShell-based implant named Powersing. While

A number of high-profile Android apps are still using an unpatched version of Google's widely-used app update library, potentially putting the personal data of hundreds of millions of smartphone users at risk of hacking. Many popular apps, including Grindr, Bumble, OkCupid, Cisco Teams, Moovit, Yango Pro, Microsoft Edge, Xrecorder, and PowerDirector, are still vulnerable and can be hijacked to steal sensitive data, such as passwords, financial details, and e-mails. The bug, tracked as  CVE-2020-8913 , is rated 8.8 out of 10.0 for severity and impacts Android's Play Core Library versions prior to  1.7.2 . Although Google addressed the vulnerability in March,  new findings  from Check Point Research show that many third-party app developers are yet to integrate the new Play Core library into their apps to mitigate the threat fully. "Unlike server-side vulnerabilities, where the vulnerability is patched completely once the patch is applied to the server, for client-side

TrickBot , one of the most notorious and adaptable malware botnets in the world, is expanding its toolset to set its sights on firmware vulnerabilities to potentially deploy bootkits and take complete control of an infected system. The new functionality, dubbed " TrickBoot " by Advanced Intelligence (AdvIntel) and Eclypsium, makes use of readily available tools to check devices for well-known vulnerabilities that can allow attackers to inject malicious code in the UEFI/BIOS firmware of a device, granting the attackers an effective mechanism of persistent malware storage. "This marks a significant step in the evolution of TrickBot as UEFI level implants are the deepest, most powerful, and stealthy form of bootkits," the researchers said. "By adding the ability to canvas victim devices for specific UEFI/BIOS firmware vulnerabilities, TrickBot actors are able to target specific victims with firmware-level persistence that survives re-imaging or even device br

Cybersecurity researchers today took the wraps off a previously undocumented backdoor and document stealer that has been deployed against specific targets from 2015 to early 2020. Codenamed " Crutch " by ESET researchers, the malware has been attributed to  Turla  (aka Venomous Bear or Snake), a Russia-based advanced hacker group known for its extensive attacks against governments, embassies, and military organizations through various watering hole and spear-phishing campaigns. "These tools were designed to exfiltrate sensitive documents and other files to Dropbox accounts controlled by Turla operators," the cybersecurity firm said in an analysis shared with The Hacker News. The backdoor implants were secretly installed on several machines belonging to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in an unnamed country of the European Union. Besides identifying strong links between a Crutch sample from 2016 and Turla's yet another second-stage backdoor called  Gazer , t

Multiple botnets are targeting thousands of publicly exposed and still unpatched Oracle WebLogic servers to deploy crypto miners and steal sensitive information from infected systems. The attacks are taking aim at a recently patched WebLogic Server vulnerability, which was released by Oracle as part of its  October 2020 Critical Patch Update  and subsequently again in November ( CVE-2020-14750 ) in the form of an out-of-band security patch. As of writing, about 3,000 Oracle WebLogic servers are accessible on the Internet-based on stats from the Shodan search engine. Oracle  WebLogic  is a platform for developing, deploying, and running enterprise Java applications in any cloud environment as well as on-premises. The flaw, which is tracked as CVE-2020-14882, has a CVSS score of 9.8 out of a maximum rating of 10 and affects WebLogic Server versions 10.3.6.0.0, 12.1.3.0.0, 12.2.1.3.0, 12.2.1.4.0, and 14.1.1.0.0. Although the issue has been addressed, the release of  proof-of-concep

CISOs with small security teams hold an intensive juggling act. They're responsible for sustaining the company's security resilience, ensuring compliance is adhered to and implementing privacy controls. In between these tasks, they need to follow up on board updates, lead cross-team communications and collaboration, and fight fires that may or may not be related to cybersecurity. All the while, they're doing this with a small security team, trying to get the most out of existing resources, preventing team burnout, and most likely taking an active, hands-on approach to ensure that all the goals are met. While each CISO has their game plan, what's certain is that CISOs with small security teams are all about efficiency. Efficiency takes on various forms based on each CISO's background, capacity, industry, and even company culture. In the e-Book "10 CISOs With Small Security Teams Share Their Must Dos and Don'ts"  (Download it here) , CISOs of teams