Cyber Attack | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) revealed that it's responding to a cyber attack that involved the active exploitation of Unitronics programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to target the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa in western Pennsylvania. The attack has been attributed to an Iranian-backed hacktivist collective known as Cyber Av3ngers. "Cyber threat actors are targeting PLCs associated with [Water and Wastewater Systems] facilities, including an identified Unitronics PLC, at a U.S. water facility," the agency said . "In response, the affected municipality's water authority immediately took the system offline and switched to manual operations—there is no known risk to the municipality's drinking water or water supply." According to news reports quoted by the Water Information Sharing and Analysis Center (WaterISAC), Cyber Av3ngers is alleged to have seized control of the booster station that monitors and regulates p

An unspecified government entity in Afghanistan was targeted by a previously undocumented web shell called  HrServ  in what's suspected to be an advanced persistent threat (APT) attack. The web shell, a dynamic-link library (DLL) named "hrserv.dll," exhibits "sophisticated features such as custom encoding methods for client communication and in-memory execution," Kaspersky security researcher Mert Degirmenci  said  in an analysis published this week. The Russian cybersecurity firm said it identified variants of the malware dating all the way back to early 2021 based on the compilation timestamps of these artifacts. Web shells are typically  malicious tools  that provide remote control over a compromised server. Once uploaded, it allows threat actors to carry out a range of post-exploitation activities, including data theft, server monitoring, and lateral advancement within the network. The attack chain involves the  PAExec  remote administration tool, an alternative to  PsExec  t

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The China-linked Mustang Panda actor has been linked to a cyber attack targeting a Philippines government entity amid  rising tensions  between the two countries over the disputed South China Sea. Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 attributed the adversarial collective to three campaigns in August 2023, primarily singling out organizations in the South Pacific. "The campaigns leveraged legitimate software including Solid PDF Creator and SmadavProtect (an Indonesian-based antivirus solution) to sideload malicious files," the company  said . "Threat authors also creatively configured the malware to impersonate legitimate Microsoft traffic for command-and-control (C2) connections." Mustang Panda, also tracked under the names Bronze President, Camaro Dragon, Earth Preta, RedDelta, and Stately Taurus, is assessed to be a Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT) active since at least 2012,  orchestrating   cyber espionage   campaigns  targeting non-governmental organization

Russian cyber espionage actors affiliated with the Federal Security Service (FSB) have been observed using a USB propagating worm called  LitterDrifter  in attacks targeting Ukrainian entities. Check Point, which  detailed  Gamaredon's (aka Aqua Blizzard, Iron Tilden, Primitive Bear, Shuckworm, and Winterflounder) latest tactics, branded the group as engaging in large-scale campaigns that are followed by "data collection efforts aimed at specific targets, whose selection is likely motivated by espionage goals." The LitterDrifter worm packs in two main features: automatically spreading the malware via connected USB drives as well as communicating with the threat actor's command-and-control (C&C) servers. It's also suspected to be an evolution of a PowerShell-based USB worm that was previously  disclosed  by Symantec in June 2023. Written in VBS, the spreader module is responsible for distributing the worm as a hidden file in a USB drive together with a deco

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has given a November 17, 2023, deadline for federal agencies and organizations to apply mitigations to secure against a number of security flaws in Juniper Junos OS that came to light in August. The agency on Monday  added  five vulnerabilities to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation - CVE-2023-36844  (CVSS score: 5.3) - Juniper Junos OS EX Series PHP External Variable Modification Vulnerability CVE-2023-36845  (CVSS score: 5.3) - Juniper Junos OS EX Series and SRX Series PHP External Variable Modification Vulnerability CVE-2023-36846  (CVSS score: 5.3) - Juniper Junos OS SRX Series Missing Authentication for Critical Function Vulnerability CVE-2023-36847  (CVSS score: 5.3) - Juniper Junos OS EX Series Missing Authentication for Critical Function Vulnerability CVE-2023-36851  (CVSS score: 5.3) - Juniper Junos OS SRX Series Missing Authentication for Critical

The threat actors behind a new ransomware group called  Hunters International  have acquired the source code and infrastructure from the now-dismantled Hive operation to kick-start its own efforts in the threat landscape. "It appears that the leadership of the Hive group made the strategic decision to cease their operations and transfer their remaining assets to another group, Hunters International," Martin Zugec, technical solutions director at Bitdefender,  said  in a report published last week. Hive, once a prolific ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation, was  taken down  as part of a coordinated law enforcement operation in January 2023. While it's common for ransomware actors to regroup, rebrand, or disband their activities following such seizures, what can also happen is that the core developers can pass on the source code and other infrastructure in their possession to another threat actor. Reports about Hunters International as a possible Hive rebrand  sur

Cybersecurity researchers have warned about a Windows version of a wiper malware that was previously observed targeting Linux systems in cyber attacks aimed at Israel. Dubbed  BiBi-Windows Wiper  by BlackBerry, the wiper is the Windows counterpart of  BiBi-Linux Wiper , which has been put to use by a pro-Hamas hacktivist group in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war last month. "The Windows variant [...] confirms that the threat actors who created the wiper are continuing to build out the malware, and indicates an expansion of the attack to target end user machines and application servers," the Canadian company  said  Friday. Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET is  tracking  the actor behind the wiper under the name BiBiGun, noting that the Windows variant (bibi.exe) is designed to overwrite data in the C:\Users directory recursively with junk data and append ".BiBi" to the filename. The BiBi-Windows Wiper artifact is said to have been compiled on October 21, 2023, two

The notorious Russian hackers known as  Sandworm  targeted an electrical substation in Ukraine last year, causing a brief power outage in October 2022. The findings come from Google's Mandiant, which described the hack as a "multi-event cyber attack" leveraging a novel technique for impacting industrial control systems (ICS). "The actor first used OT-level living-off-the-land ( LotL ) techniques to likely trip the victim's substation circuit breakers, causing an unplanned power outage that coincided with mass missile strikes on critical infrastructure across Ukraine," the company  said . "Sandworm later conducted a second disruptive event by deploying a new variant of  CaddyWiper  in the victim's IT environment." The threat intelligence firm did not reveal the location of the targeted energy facility, the duration of the blackout, and the number of people who were impacted by the incident. The development marks Sandworm's  continuous

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a stealthy backdoor named  Effluence  that's deployed following the successful exploitation of a recently disclosed security flaw in Atlassian Confluence Data Center and Server. "The malware acts as a persistent backdoor and is not remediated by applying patches to Confluence," Aon's Stroz Friedberg Incident Response Services  said  in an analysis published earlier this week. "The backdoor provides capability for lateral movement to other network resources in addition to exfiltration of data from Confluence. Importantly, attackers can access the backdoor remotely without authenticating to Confluence." The attack chain documented by the cybersecurity entity entailed the exploitation of  CVE-2023-22515  (CVSS score: 10.0), a critical bug in Atlassian that could be abused to create unauthorized Confluence administrator accounts and access Confluence servers. Atlassian has since disclosed a second flaw known as  CV

A group with links to Iran targeted transportation, logistics, and technology sectors in the Middle East, including Israel, in October 2023 amid a surge in Iranian cyber activity since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war. The attacks have been attributed by CrowdStrike to a threat actor it tracks under the name  Imperial Kitten , and which is also known as Crimson Sandstorm (previously Curium), TA456, Tortoiseshell, and Yellow Liderc. The latest findings from the company build on prior reports from  Mandiant ,  ClearSky , and  PwC , the latter of which also detailed instances of strategic web compromises (aka watering hole attacks) leading to the deployment of IMAPLoader on infected systems. "The adversary, active since at least 2017, likely fulfills Iranian strategic intelligence requirements associated with IRGC operations," CrowdStrike  said  in a technical report. "Its activity is characterized by its use of social engineering, particularly job recruitment-themed content, to deli

Urdu-speaking readers of a regional news website that caters to the Gilgit-Baltistan region have likely emerged as a target of a watering hole attack designed to deliver a previously undocumented Android spyware dubbed  Kamran . The campaign, ESET has  discovered , leverages Hunza News (urdu.hunzanews[.]net), which, when opened on a mobile device, prompts visitors of the Urdu version to install its Android app directly hosted on the website. The app, however, incorporates malicious espionage capabilities, with the attack compromising at least 20 mobile devices to date. It has been available on the website since sometime between January 7, and March 21, 2023, around when  massive protests  were held in the region over land rights, taxation, and extensive power cuts. The malware, activated upon package installation, requests for intrusive permissions, allowing it to harvest sensitive information from the devices.  This includes contacts, call logs, calendar events, location informa

Iranian nation-state actors have been observed using a previously undocumented command-and-control (C2) framework called  MuddyC2Go  as part of  attacks targeting Israel . "The framework's web component is written in the Go programming language," Deep Instinct security researcher Simon Kenin  said  in a technical report published Wednesday. The tool has been attributed to  MuddyWater , an  Iranian   state-sponsored   hacking   crew  that's affiliated to the country's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). The cybersecurity firm said the C2 framework may have been put to use by the threat actor since early 2020, with recent attacks leveraging it in place of PhonyC2 , another custom C2 platform from MuddyWater that came to light in June 2023 and has had its source code leaked. Typical attack sequences observed over the years have involved sending spear-phishing emails bearing malware-laced archives or bogus links that lead to the deployment of legitimat

ChatGPT: Productivity tool, great for writing poems, and… a security risk?! In this article, we show how threat actors can exploit ChatGPT, but also how defenders can use it for leveling up their game. ChatGPT is the most swiftly growing consumer application to date. The extremely popular generative AI chatbot has the ability to generate human-like, coherent and contextually relevant responses. This makes it very valuable for applications like content creation, coding, education, customer support, and even personal assistance. However, ChatGPT also comes with security risks. ChatGPT can be used for data exfiltration, spreading misinformation, developing cyber attacks and writing phishing emails. On the flip side, it can help defenders who can use it for identifying vulnerabilities and learning about various defenses. In this article, we show numerous ways attackers can exploit ChatGPT and the OpenAI Playground. Just as importantly, we show ways that defenders can leverage ChatGPT t

Israeli higher education and tech sectors have been targeted as part of a series of destructive cyber attacks that commenced in January 2023 with an aim to deploy previously undocumented wiper malware. The intrusions, which took place as recently as October, have been attributed to an Iranian nation-state hacking crew it tracks under the name Agonizing Serpens, which is also known as Agrius, BlackShadow and Pink Sandstorm (previously Americium). "The attacks are characterized by attempts to steal sensitive data, such as personally identifiable information (PII) and intellectual property," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 said in a new report shared with The Hacker News. "Once the attackers stole the information, they deployed various wipers intended to cover the attackers' tracks and to render the infected endpoints unusable." This includes three different novel wipers such as MultiLayer, PartialWasher, and BFG Agonizer, as well as a bespoke tool to extract inf

Identity and authentication management provider Okta on Friday disclosed that the  recent support case management system breach  affected 134 of its 18,400 customers. It further noted that the unauthorized intruder gained access to its systems from September 28 to October 17, 2023, and ultimately accessed HAR files containing session tokens that could be used for session hijacking attacks. "The threat actor was able to use these session tokens to hijack the legitimate Okta sessions of 5 customers," Okta's Chief Security Officer, David Bradbury,  said . Three of those affected include  1Password, BeyondTrust, and Cloudflare . 1Password was the first company to report suspicious activity on September 29. Two other unnamed customers were identified on October 12 and October 18. Okta formally  revealed  the  security event  on October 20, stating that the threat actor leveraged access to a stolen credential to access Okta's support case management system. Now, the

A threat actor affiliated with Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) has been observed waging a sophisticated cyber espionage campaign targeting financial, government, military, and telecommunications sectors in the Middle East for at least a year. Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point, which discovered the campaign alongside Sygnia, is tracking the actor under the name  Scarred Manticore , which is said to closely overlap with an emerging cluster dubbed  Storm-0861 , one of the four Iranian groups linked to destructive attacks on the Albanian government last year. Victims of the operation span various countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Iraq, and Israel. Scarred Manticore also exhibits some degree of overlap with  OilRig , another Iranian nation-state crew that was recently attributed to an attack on an unnamed Middle East government between February and September 2023 as part of an eight-month-long campaign. Another

F5 is warning of active abuse of a critical security flaw in BIG-IP less than a week after its public disclosure, resulting in the execution of arbitrary system commands as part of an exploit chain. Tracked as  CVE-2023-46747  (CVSS score: 9.8), the  vulnerability  allows an unauthenticated attacker with network access to the BIG-IP system through the management port to achieve code execution. A proof-of-concept (PoC)  exploit  has since been made  available  by ProjectDiscovery. It impacts the following versions of the software - 17.1.0 (Fixed in 17.1.0.3 + Hotfix-BIGIP-17.1.0.3.0.75.4-ENG) 16.1.0 - 16.1.4 (Fixed in 16.1.4.1 + Hotfix-BIGIP-16.1.4.1.0.50.5-ENG) 15.1.0 - 15.1.10 (Fixed in 15.1.10.2 + Hotfix-BIGIP-15.1.10.2.0.44.2-ENG) 14.1.0 - 14.1.5 (Fixed in 14.1.5.6 + Hotfix-BIGIP-14.1.5.6.0.10.6-ENG) 13.1.0 - 13.1.5 (Fixed in 13.1.5.1 + Hotfix-BIGIP-13.1.5.1.0.20.2-ENG) Now the company is  alerting  that it has "observed threat actors using this vulnerability to expl

The threat actor known as  Arid Viper  (aka APT-C-23, Desert Falcon, or TAG-63) has been attributed as behind an Android spyware campaign targeting Arabic-speaking users with a counterfeit dating app designed to harvest data from infected handsets. "Arid Viper's Android malware has a number of features that enable the operators to surreptitiously collect sensitive information from victims' devices and deploy additional executables," Cisco Talos  said  in a Tuesday report. Active since at least 2017, Arid Viper is a cyber espionage that's aligned with  Hamas , an Islamist militant movement that governs the Gaza Strip. The cybersecurity firm said there is no evidence connecting the campaign to the  ongoing   Israel-Hamas war . The activity is believed to have commenced no earlier than April 2022. Interestingly, the mobile malware shares source code similarities with a non-malicious online dating application called Skipped, suggesting that the operators are eit