Authentication | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Two high-severity security flaws have been disclosed in the open-source ruby-saml library that could allow malicious actors to bypass Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) authentication protections. SAML is an XML-based markup language and open-standard used for exchanging authentication and authorization data between parties, enabling features like single sign-on (SSO), which allows individuals to use a single set of credentials to access multiple sites, services, and apps. The vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2025-25291 and CVE-2025-25292 , carry a CVSS score of 8.8 out of 10.0. They affect the following versions of the library - < 1.12.4 >= 1.13.0, < 1.18.0 Both the shortcomings stem from how both REXML and Nokogiri parse XML differently, causing the two parsers to generate entirely different document structures from the same XML input This parser differential allows an attacker to be able to execute a Signature Wrapping attack, leading to an authentication by...

Taiwanese company Moxa has released a security update to address a critical security flaw impacting its PT switches that could permit an attacker to bypass authentication guarantees. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-12297 , has been assigned a CVSS v4 score of 9.2 out of a maximum of 10.0. "Multiple Moxa PT switches are vulnerable to an authentication bypass because of flaws in their authorization mechanism," the company said in an advisory released last week. "Despite client-side and back-end server verification, attackers can exploit weaknesses in its implementation. This vulnerability may enable brute-force attacks to guess valid credentials or MD5 collision attacks to forge authentication hashes, potentially compromising the security of the device." Successful exploitation of the shortcoming, in other words, could lead to an authentication bypass and allow an attacker to gain unauthorized access to sensitive configurations or disrupt services. The...

Are you tired of dealing with outdated security tools that never seem to give you the full picture? You're not alone. Many organizations struggle with piecing together scattered information, leaving your apps vulnerable to modern threats. That's why we're excited to introduce a smarter, unified approach: Application Security Posture Management (ASPM). ASPM brings together the best of both worlds by connecting your code insights with real-time runtime data. This means you get a clear, holistic view of your application's security. Instead of reacting to threats, ASPM helps you prevent them. Imagine reducing costly retrofits and emergency patches with a proactive, shift-left strategy—saving you time, money, and stress. Join Amir Kaushansky, Director of Product Management at Palo Alto Networks, as he walks you through how ASPM is changing the game. In this free webinar , you'll learn to: Close the Security Gaps: Understand why traditional AppSec tools fall short and how ASPM fills ...

Credential stuffing attacks had a huge impact in 2024, fueled by a vicious circle of infostealer infections and data breaches . But things could be about to get worse still with Computer-Using Agents, a new kind of AI agent that enables low-cost, low-effort automation of common web tasks — including those frequently performed by attackers. Stolen credentials: The cyber criminal's weapon of choice in 2024 Stolen credentials were the #1 attacker action in 2023/24 , and the breach vector for 80% of web app attacks. Not surprising when you consider the fact that billions of leaked credentials are in circulation online, and attackers can pick up the latest drop for as little as $10 on criminal forums.  The criminal marketplace for stolen credentials is benefitting from the publicity of high-profile breaches in 2024 such as the attacks on Snowflake customers using credentials found in data breach dumps and compromised credential feeds from infostealer and mass phishing campaigns, r...

A new malware campaign has been observed targeting edge devices from Cisco, ASUS, QNAP, and Synology to rope them into a botnet named PolarEdge since at least the end of 2023. French cybersecurity company Sekoia said it observed the unknown threat actors deploying a backdoor by leveraging CVE-2023-20118 (CVSS score: 6.5), a critical security flaw impacting Cisco Small Business RV016, RV042, RV042G, RV082, RV320, and RV325 Routers that could result in arbitrary command execution on susceptible devices. The vulnerability remains unpatched due to the routers reaching end-of-life (EoL) status. As workarounds, Cisco recommended in early 2023 that the flaw can be mitigated by disabling remote management and blocking access to ports 443 and 60443. In the attack registered against Sekoia's honeypots, the vulnerability is said to have been used to deliver a previously undocumented implant, a TLS backdoor that incorporates the ability to listen for incoming client connections and execu...

Passwords are rarely appreciated until a security breach occurs; suffice to say, the importance of a strong password becomes clear only when faced with the consequences of a weak one. However, most end users are unaware of just how vulnerable their passwords are to the most common password-cracking methods. The following are the three common techniques for cracking passwords and how to defend against them. Brute force attack Brute force attacks are straightforward yet highly effective techniques for cracking passwords. These attacks involve malicious actors using automated tools to systematically try every possible password combination through repeated login attempts. While such tools have existed for years, the advent of affordable computing power and storage has made them even more efficient today, especially when weak passwords are used. How it works When it comes to brute force attacks, malicious actors employ a range of tactics—from simple brute force attacks that test ev...

Security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in Xerox VersaLink C7025 Multifunction printers (MFPs) that could allow attackers to capture authentication credentials via pass-back attacks via Lightweight Directory Access Protocol ( LDAP ) and SMB/FTP services. "This pass-back style attack leverages a vulnerability that allows a malicious actor to alter the MFP's configuration and cause the MFP device to send authentication credentials back to the malicious actor," Rapid7 security researcher Deral Heiland said . "If a malicious actor can successfully leverage these issues, it would allow them to capture credentials for Windows Active Directory. This means they could then move laterally within an organization's environment and compromise other critical Windows servers and file systems." The identified vulnerabilities, which affect firmware versions 57.69.91 and earlier, are listed below - CVE-2024-12510 (CVSS score: 6.7) - Pass-back attack via LDAP CVE-202...

Microsoft is calling attention to an emerging threat cluster it calls Storm-2372 that has been attributed to a new set of cyber attacks aimed at a variety of sectors since August 2024. The attacks have targeted government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), information technology (IT) services and technology, defense, telecommunications, health, higher education, and energy/oil and gas sectors in Europe, North America, Africa, and the Middle East.  The threat actor, assessed with medium confidence to be aligned with Russian interests, victimology, and tradecraft, has been observed targeting users via messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal, and Microsoft Teams by falsely claiming to be a prominent person relevant to the target in an attempt to build trust. "The attacks use a specific phishing technique called 'device code phishing' that tricks users to log into productivity apps while Storm-2372 actors capture the information from the log in (tokens) that they can us...

Palo Alto Networks has addressed a high-severity security flaw in its PAN-OS software that could result in an authentication bypass. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-0108 , carries a CVSS score of 7.8 out of 10.0. The score, however, drops to 5.1 if access to the management interface is restricted to a jump box . "An authentication bypass in the Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS software enables an unauthenticated attacker with network access to the management web interface to bypass the authentication otherwise required by the PAN-OS management web interface and invoke certain PHP scripts," Palo Alto Networks said in an advisory. "While invoking these PHP scripts does not enable remote code execution, it can negatively impact the integrity and confidentiality of PAN-OS." The vulnerability affects the following versions - PAN-OS 11.2 < 11.2.4-h4 (Fixed in >= 11.2.4-h4) PAN-OS 11.1 < 11.1.6-h1 (Fixed in >= 11.1.6-h1) PAN-OS 11.0 (Upgrade to a sup...

Microsoft has released patches to address two Critical-rated security flaws impacting Azure AI Face Service and Microsoft Account that could allow a malicious actor to escalate their privileges under certain conditions. The flaws are listed below - CVE-2025-21396 (CVSS score: 7.5) - Microsoft Account Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability CVE-2025-21415 (CVSS score: 9.9) - Azure AI Face Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability "Authentication bypass by spoofing in Azure AI Face Service allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges over a network," Microsoft in an advisory for CVE-2025-21415, crediting an anonymous researcher for reporting the flaw. CVE-2025-21396, on the other hand, stems from a case of missing authorization that could permit an unauthorized attacker to elevate privileges over a network. A security researcher who goes by the alias Sugobet has been acknowledged for discovering it. The tech giant also noted that it's aware of the existen...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a now-patched account takeover vulnerability affecting a popular online travel service for hotel and car rentals. "By exploiting this flaw, attackers can gain unauthorized access to any user's account within the system, effectively allowing them to impersonate the victim and perform an array of actions on their behalf – including booking hotels and car rentals using the victim's airline loyalty points, canceling or editing booking information, and more," API security firm Salt Labs said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Successful exploitation of the vulnerability could have put millions of online airline users at risk, it added. The name of the company was not disclosed, but it said the service is integrated into "dozens of commercial airline online services" and enables users to add hotel bookings to their airline itinerary. The shortcoming, in a nutshell, can be weaponized trivially by sending a...

Multiple security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in GitHub Desktop as well as other Git-related projects that, if successfully exploited, could permit an attacker to gain unauthorized access to a user's Git credentials. "Git implements a protocol called Git Credential Protocol to retrieve credentials from the credential helper ," GMO Flatt Security researcher Ry0taK, who discovered the flaws, said in an analysis published Sunday. "Because of improper handling of messages, many projects were vulnerable to credential leakage in various ways." The list of identified vulnerabilities, dubbed Clone2Leak, is as follows - CVE-2025-23040 (CVSS score: 6.6) - Maliciously crafted remote URLs could lead to credential leaks in GitHub Desktop  CVE-2024-50338 (CVSS score: 7.4) - Carriage-return character in remote URL allows the malicious repository to leak credentials in Git Credential Manager CVE-2024-53263 (CVSS score: 8.5) - Git LFS permits retrieval of cre...

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...

Cybersecurity researchers are warning that thousands of servers hosting the Prometheus monitoring and alerting toolkit are at risk of information leakage and exposure to denial-of-service (DoS) as well as remote code execution (RCE) attacks. "Prometheus servers or exporters , often lacking proper authentication, allowed attackers to easily gather sensitive information, such as credentials and API keys," Aqua security researchers Yakir Kadkoda and Assaf Morag said in a new report shared with The Hacker News. The cloud security firm also said that the exposure of the "/debug/pprof" endpoints used for determining heap memory usage, CPU usage, and others, could serve as a vector for DoS attacks, rendering the servers inoperable. As many as 296,000 Prometheus Node Exporter instances and 40,300 Prometheus servers have been estimated to be publicly accessible over the internet, making them a huge attack surface that could put data and services at risk. The fact th...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a "critical" security vulnerability in Microsoft's multi-factor authentication (MFA) implementation that allows an attacker to trivially sidestep the protection and gain unauthorized access to a victim's account. "The bypass was simple: it took around an hour to execute, required no user interaction and did not generate any notification or provide the account holder with any indication of trouble," Oasis Security researchers Elad Luz and Tal Hason said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Following responsible disclosure, the issue – codenamed AuthQuake – was addressed by Microsoft in October 2024. While the Windows maker supports various ways to authenticate users via MFA, one method involves entering a six-digit code from an authenticator app after supplying the credentials. Up to 10 consequent failed attempts are permitted for a single session. The vulnerability identified by Oasis, at its core, concerns...

Google has introduced a new feature called Restore Credentials to help users restore their account access to third-party apps securely after migrating to a new Android device. Part of Android's Credential Manager API , the feature aims to reduce the hassle of re-entering the login credentials for every app during the handset replacement. "With Restore Credentials, apps can seamlessly onboard users to their accounts on a new device after they restore their apps and data from their previous device," Google's Neelansh Sahai said . The tech giant said the process occurs automatically in the background when a user restores apps and data from a previous device, enabling apps to sign users back into the respective accounts without requiring any additional interaction. This is accomplished by means of what's called a restore key, which, in reality, is a public key that's compatible with FIDO2 standards such as passkeys. Thus when a user signs in to an app that...