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A malvertising campaign is leveraging trojanized installers for popular software such as Google Chrome and Microsoft Teams to drop a backdoor called Oyster (aka Broomstick and CleanUpLoader). That's according to findings from Rapid7, which identified lookalike websites hosting the malicious payloads that users are redirected to after searching for them on search engines like Google and Bing. The threat actors are luring unsuspecting users to fake websites purporting to contain legitimate software. But attempting to download the setup binary launches a malware infection chain instead. Specifically, the executable serves as a pathway for a backdoor called Oyster, which is capable of gathering information about the compromised host, communicating with a hard-coded command-and-control (C2) address, and supporting remote code execution. While Oyster has been observed in the past being delivered by means of a dedicated loader component known as Broomstick Loader (aka Oyster Instal

Cyber espionage groups associated with China have been linked to a long-running campaign that has infiltrated several telecom operators located in a single Asian country at least since 2021. "The attackers placed backdoors on the networks of targeted companies and also attempted to steal credentials," the Symantec Threat Hunter Team, part of Broadcom, said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The cybersecurity firm did not reveal the country that was targeted, but said it found evidence to suggest that the malicious cyber activity may have started as far back as 2020. The attacks also targeted an unnamed services company that catered to the telecoms sector and a university in another Asian country, it added. The choice of tools used in this campaign overlaps with other missions conducted by Chinese espionage groups like Mustang Panda (aka Earth Preta and Fireant), RedFoxtrot (aka Neeedleminer and Nomad Panda), and Naikon (aka Firefly) in recent years. This incl

Since its emergence, Generative AI has revolutionized enterprise productivity. GenAI tools enable faster and more effective software development, financial analysis, business planning, and customer engagement. However, this business agility comes with significant risks, particularly the potential for sensitive data leakage. As organizations attempt to balance productivity gains with security concerns, many have been forced to choose between unrestricted GenAI usage to banning it altogether. A new e-guide by LayerX titled 5 Actionable Measures to Prevent Data Leakage Through Generative AI Tools is designed to help organizations navigate the challenges of GenAI usage in the workplace. The guide offers practical steps for security managers to protect sensitive corporate data while still reaping the productivity benefits of GenAI tools like ChatGPT. This approach is intended to allow companies to strike the right balance between innovation and security. Why Worry About ChatGPT? The e

A new Rust-based information stealer malware called Fickle Stealer has been observed being delivered via multiple attack chains with the goal of harvesting sensitive information from compromised hosts. Fortinet FortiGuard Labs said it's aware of four different distribution methods -- namely VBA dropper, VBA downloader, link downloader, and executable downloader -- with some of them using a PowerShell script to bypass User Account Control (UAC) and execute Fickle Stealer. The PowerShell script ("bypass.ps1" or "u.ps1") is also designed to periodically send information about the victim, including country, city, IP address, operating system version, computer name, and username to a Telegram bot controlled by the attacker. The stealer payload, which is protected using a packer, runs a series of anti-analysis checks to determine if it's running in a sandbox or a virtual machine environment, following which it beacons out to a remote server to exfiltrate da

Threat actors have been observed deploying a malware called NiceRAT to co-opt infected devices into a botnet. The attacks, which target South Korean users, are designed to propagate the malware under the guise of cracked software, such as Microsoft Windows, or tools that purport to offer license verification for Microsoft Office. "Due to the nature of crack programs, information sharing amongst ordinary users contributes to the malware's distribution independently from the initial distributor," the AhnLab Security Intelligence Center (ASEC) said . "Because threat actors typically explain ways to remove anti-malware programs during the distribution phase, it is difficult to detect the distributed malware." Alternate distribution vectors involve the use of a botnet comprising zombie computers that are infiltrated by a remote access trojan (RAT) known as NanoCore RAT , mirroring prior activity that leveraged the Nitol DDoS malware for propagating another malware

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a new suspicious package uploaded to the npm package registry that's designed to drop a remote access trojan (RAT) on compromised systems. The package in question is glup-debugger-log , which targets users of the gulp toolkit by masquerading as a "logger for gulp and gulp plugins." It has been downloaded 175 times to date. Software supply chain security firm Phylum, which discovered the package, said the software comes fitted with two obfuscated files that work in tandem to deploy the malicious payload. "One worked as a kind of initial dropper setting the stage for the malware campaign by compromising the target machine if it met certain requirements, then downloading additional malware components, and the other script providing the attacker with a persistent remote access mechanism to control the compromised machine," it said . Phylum's closer examination of the library's package.json file – which acts as

Cybersecurity researchers have warned of a new malicious Python package that has been discovered in the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository to facilitate cryptocurrency theft as part of a broader campaign. The package in question is pytoileur , which has been downloaded 316 times as of writing. Interestingly, the package author, who goes by the name PhilipsPY, has uploaded a new version of the package (1.0.2) with identical functionality after a previous version (1.0.1) was yanked by PyPI maintainers on May 28, 2024. According to an analysis released by Sonatype, the malicious code is embedded in the package's setup.py script, allowing it to execute a Base64-encoded payload that's responsible for retrieving a Windows binary from an external server. "The retrieved binary, 'Runtime.exe,' is then run by leveraging Windows PowerShell and VBScript commands on the system," security researcher Ax Sharma said . Once installed, the binary establishes persiste

The threat actors behind the CatDDoS malware botnet have exploited over 80 known security flaws in various software over the past three months to infiltrate vulnerable devices and co-opt them into a botnet for conducting distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. "CatDDoS-related gangs' samples have used a large number of known vulnerabilities to deliver samples," the QiAnXin XLab team  said . "Additionally, the maximum number of targets has been observed to exceed 300+ per day." The flaws impact routers, networking gear, and other devices from vendors such as Apache (ActiveMQ, Hadoop, Log4j, and RocketMQ), Cacti, Cisco, D-Link, DrayTek, FreePBX, GitLab, Gocloud, Huawei, Jenkins, Linksys, Metabase, NETGEAR, Realtek, Seagate, SonicWall, Tenda, TOTOLINK, TP-Link, ZTE, and Zyxel, among others. CatDDoS was previously documented by  QiAnXin  and  NSFOCUS  in late 2023, describing it as a  Mirai botnet variant  capable of performing DDoS attacks using UDP, TCP,

Ransomware attacks targeting VMware ESXi infrastructure follow an established pattern regardless of the file-encrypting malware deployed, new findings show. "Virtualization platforms are a core component of organizational IT infrastructure, yet they often suffer from inherent misconfigurations and vulnerabilities, making them a lucrative and highly effective target for threat actors to abuse," cybersecurity firm Sygnia  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. The Israeli company, through its incident response efforts involving various ransomware families like LockBit, HelloKitty, BlackMatter, RedAlert (N13V), Scattered Spider, Akira, Cactus, BlackCat and Cheerscrypt, found that attacks on virtualization environments adhere to a similar sequence of actions. This includes the following steps - Obtaining initial access through phishing attacks, malicious file downloads, and exploitation of known vulnerabilities in internet-facing assets Escalating their privilege

Governmental entities in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia are the target of a Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT) group as part of an ongoing cyber espionage campaign dubbed  Operation Diplomatic Specter  since at least late 2022. "An analysis of this threat actor's activity reveals long-term espionage operations against at least seven governmental entities," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 researchers Lior Rochberger and Daniel Frank  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. "The threat actor performed intelligence collection efforts at a large scale, leveraging rare email exfiltration techniques against compromised servers." The cybersecurity firm, which previously tracked the activity cluster under the name CL-STA-0043, said it's graduating it to a temporary actor group codenamed TGR-STA-0043 owing to its assessment that the intrusion set is the work of a single actor operating on behalf of Chinese state-aligned interests. Targets of the attacks i

Ivanti on Tuesday rolled out fixes to address multiple critical security flaws in Endpoint Manager (EPM) that could be exploited to achieve remote code execution under certain circumstances. Six of the 10 vulnerabilities – from  CVE-2024-29822 through CVE-2024-29827  (CVSS scores: 9.6) – relate to SQL injection flaws that allow an unauthenticated attacker within the same network to execute arbitrary code. The remaining four bugs -- CVE-2024-29828, CVE-2024-29829, CVE-2024-29830, and CVE-2024-29846 (CVSS scores: 8.4) -- also fall under the same category with the only change being that they require the attacker to be authenticated. The shortcomings impact the Core server of Ivanti EPM versions 2022 SU5 and prior. The company has also  addressed  a high-severity security flaw in Avalanche version 6.4.3.602 (CVE-2024-29848, CVSS score: 7.2) that could permit an attacker to achieve remote code execution by uploading a specially crafted file. In addition, patches have been shipped for

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Monday  added  a security flaw impacting NextGen Healthcare Mirth Connect to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The flaw, tracked as  CVE-2023-43208  (CVSS score: N/A), concerns a case of unauthenticated remote code execution arising from an incomplete patch for another critical flaw CVE-2023-37679 (CVSS score: 9.8). Details of the vulnerability were first revealed by Horizon3.ai in late October 2023, with additional technical specifics and a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit released earlier this January. Mirth Connect is an open-source data integration platform widely used by healthcare companies, allowing for data exchange between different systems in a standardized manner. CVE-2023-43208 is "ultimately related to insecure usage of the Java XStream library for unmarshalling XML payloads," security researcher Naveen Sunkavally  said , describing t

Microsoft has addressed a total of  61 new security flaws  in its software as part of its Patch Tuesday updates for May 2024, including two zero-days which have been actively exploited in the wild. Of the 61 flaws, one is rated Critical, 59 are rated Important, and one is rated Moderate in severity. This is in addition to  30 vulnerabilities  resolved in the Chromium-based Edge browser over the past month, including two recently disclosed zero-days ( CVE-2024-4671  and  CVE-2024-4761 ) that have been tagged as exploited in attacks. The two security shortcomings that have been weaponized in the wild are below - CVE-2024-30040  (CVSS score: 8.8) - Windows MSHTML Platform Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability CVE-2024-30051  (CVSS score: 7.8) - Windows Desktop Window Manager ( DWM ) Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability "An unauthenticated attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain code execution through convincing a user to open a malicious

Deploying advanced authentication measures is key to helping organizations address their weakest cybersecurity link: their human users. Having some form of 2-factor authentication in place is a great start, but many organizations may not yet be in that spot or have the needed level of authentication sophistication to adequately safeguard organizational data. When deploying advanced authentication measures, organizations can make mistakes, and it is crucial to be aware of these potential pitfalls.  1. Failing to conduct a risk assessment A comprehensive risk assessment is a vital first step to any authentication implementation. An organization leaves itself open to risk if it fails to assess current threats and vulnerabilities, systems and processes or needed level of protections required for different applications and data.  Not all applications demand the same levels of security. For example, an application that handles sensitive customer information or financials may require stro

A newer version of a malware loader called  Hijack Loader  has been observed incorporating an updated set of anti-analysis techniques to fly under the radar. "These enhancements aim to increase the malware's stealthiness, thereby remaining undetected for longer periods of time," Zscaler ThreatLabz researcher Muhammed Irfan V A  said  in a technical report. "Hijack Loader now includes modules to add an exclusion for Windows Defender Antivirus, bypass User Account Control (UAC), evade inline API hooking that is often used by security software for detection, and employ process hollowing." Hijack Loader, also called IDAT Loader, is a malware loader that was  first documented  by the cybersecurity company in September 2023. In the intervening months, the tool has been used as a conduit to deliver various malware families. This includes Amadey, Lumma Stealer (aka LummaC2), Meta Stealer, Racoon Stealer V2, Remcos RAT, and Rhadamanthys. What makes the latest vers

How safe is your comments section? Discover how a seemingly innocent 'thank you' comment on a product page concealed a malicious vulnerability, underscoring the necessity of robust security measures. Read the full real-life case study  here .  When is a 'Thank you' not a 'Thank you'? When it's a sneaky bit of code that's been hidden inside a 'Thank You' image that somebody posted in the comments section of a product page! The guilty secret hidden inside this particular piece of code was designed to let hackers bypass security controls and steal the personal identifying information of online shoppers, which could have meant big trouble for them and the company. The page in question belongs to a global retailer. User communities are often a great source of unbiased advice from fellow enthusiasts, which was why a Nikon camera owner was posting there. They were looking for the ideal 50mm lens and asked for a recommendation. They offered thanks in advance to whoever might take th