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Category — AWS security
Popular PyPI Package 'ctx' and PHP Library 'phpass' Hijacked to Steal AWS Keys

Popular PyPI Package 'ctx' and PHP Library 'phpass' Hijacked to Steal AWS Keys

May 24, 2022
Two trojanized Python and PHP packages have been uncovered in what's yet another instance of a software supply chain attack targeting the open source ecosystem. One of the packages in question is "ctx," a Python module available in the PyPi repository. The other involves "phpass," a PHP package that's been forked on GitHub to distribute a rogue update. "In both cases the attacker appears to have taken over packages that have not been updated in a while," the SANS Internet Storm Center (ISC)  said , one of whose volunteer incident handlers, Yee Ching, analyzed the ctx package. It's worth noting that ctx, prior to the latest release on May 21, 2022, was last published to PyPi on December 19, 2014. On the other hand, phpass hasn't received an update since it was uploaded to Packagist on August 31, 2012. Both the libraries have been removed from PyPi and GitHub . At its core, the modifications are designed to exfiltrate AWS credentials t
Penetration Testing Your AWS Environment - A CTO's Guide

Penetration Testing Your AWS Environment - A CTO's Guide

Oct 07, 2021
So, you've been thinking about getting a Penetration Test done on your Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment. Great! What should that involve exactly?  There are many options available, and knowing what you need will help you make your often limited security budget go as far as possible. Broadly, the key focus areas for most penetration tests involving AWS: Your externally accessible cloud infrastructure Any application(s) you're building or hosting Your internal cloud infrastructure Your AWS configuration itself Secrets management  We'll look at each one, starting with the most important: External Infrastructure The good news here is that, by default, AWS does its best to help you stay secure. For example, the default security groups don't let your EC2 instances receive communication from the outside world unless you actively specify it by adding additional rules. That said, AWS still allows you plenty of rope to hang yourself with if you're not carefu
Cyber Story Time: The Boy Who Cried "Secure!"

Cyber Story Time: The Boy Who Cried "Secure!"

Nov 21, 2024Threat Detection / Pentesting
As a relatively new security category, many security operators and executives I've met have asked us "What are these Automated Security Validation (ASV) tools?" We've covered that pretty extensively in the past, so today, instead of covering the " What is ASV?" I wanted to address the " Why ASV?" question. In this article, we'll cover some common use cases and misconceptions of how people misuse and misunderstand ASV tools daily (because that's a lot more fun). To kick things off, there's no place to start like the beginning. Automated security validation tools are designed to provide continuous, real-time assessment of an organization's cybersecurity defenses. These tools are continuous and use exploitation to validate defenses like EDR, NDR, and WAFs. They're more in-depth than vulnerability scanners because they use tactics and techniques that you'll see in manual penetration tests. Vulnerability scanners won't relay hashes or combine vulnerabilities to further attacks, whic
Preventing your Cloud 'Secrets' from Public Exposure: An IDE plugin solution

Preventing your Cloud 'Secrets' from Public Exposure: An IDE plugin solution

Aug 25, 2021
I'm sure you would agree that, in today's digital world, the majority of applications we work on require some type of credentials – to connect to a database with a username/password, to access computer programs via authorized tokens, or API keys to invoke services for authentication. Credentials, or sometimes just referred to as 'Secrets,' are pieces of user or system-level confidential information that ought to be carefully protected and accessible to legitimate users only. We all know how important it is to keep these assets secure to prevent account misuse and breaches.  A reality check: How often do you make proactive efforts to protect these assets? Rarely, I'd say.  Among the worst mistakes a developer can make when it comes to application security is to accidentally commit confidential information publicly on the Internet. Surprisingly, secrets and credentials are accidentally leaked more often than you might expect, and there are intelligent tools that s
cyber security

Creating, Managing and Securing Non-Human Identities

websitePermisoCybersecurity / Identity Security
A new class of identities has emerged alongside traditional human users: non-human identities (NHIs). Permiso Security's new eBook details everything you need to know about managing and securing non-human identities, and strategies to unify identity security without compromising agility.
11 Useful Security Tips for Securing Your AWS Environment

11 Useful Security Tips for Securing Your AWS Environment

Apr 07, 2021
Want to take advantage of excellent cloud services? Amazon Web Services may be the perfect solution, but don't forget about AWS security. Whether you want to use AWS for a few things or everything, you need to protect access to it. Then you can make sure your business can run smoothly. Read on to learn some important AWS security tips. Use Multi-Factor authentication When setting up your AWS security settings or adding new users, you should implement multi-factor authentication (MFA). MFA relies on more than one login factor to grant you access to your account. For example, when you log in to your account, the program might send a code to your mobile phone. Then you must verify that you have that phone and enter the code to access your account. MFA is an excellent way to protect your data if someone figures out your username and password. This way, you can still have a layer of protection against the hacker. Create strong passwords Even with MFA, you should use strong, uni
Brazil's Biggest Cosmetic Brand Natura Exposes Personal Details of Its Users

Brazil's Biggest Cosmetic Brand Natura Exposes Personal Details of Its Users

May 19, 2020
Brazil's biggest cosmetics company Natura accidentally left hundreds of gigabytes of its customers' personal and payment-related information publicly accessible online that could have been accessed by anyone without authentication. SafetyDetective researcher Anurag Sen last month discovered two unprotected Amazon-hosted servers—with 272GB and 1.3TB in size—belonging to Natura that consisted of more than 192 million records. According to the report Anurag shared with The Hacker News, the exposed data includes personally identifiable information on 250,000 Natura customers, their account login cookies, along with the archives containing logs from the servers and users. Worryingly, the leaked information also includes Moip payment account details with access tokens for nearly 40,000 wirecard.com.br users who integrated it with their Natura accounts. "Around 90% of users were Brazilian customers, although other nationalities were also present, including customers
Viacom Left Sensitive Data And Secret Access Key On Unsecured Amazon Server

Viacom Left Sensitive Data And Secret Access Key On Unsecured Amazon Server

Sep 20, 2017
Viacom—the popular entertainment and media company that owns Paramount Pictures, Comedy Central, MTV, and hundreds of other properties—has exposed the keys to its kingdom on an unsecured Amazon S3 server. A security researcher working for California-based cyber resiliency firm UpGuard has recently discovered a wide-open, public-facing misconfigured Amazon Web Server S3 cloud storage bucket containing roughly a gigabyte's worth of credentials and configuration files for the backend of dozens of Viacom properties. These exposed credentials discovered by UpGuard researcher Chris Vickery would have been enough for hackers to take down Viacom's internal IT infrastructure and internet presence, allowing them to access cloud servers belonging to MTV, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon. Among the data exposed in the leak was Viacom's master key to its Amazon Web Services account, and the credentials required to build and maintain Viacom servers across its many subsidiarie
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