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Microsoft is warning about the potential abuse of Azure Service Tags by malicious actors to forge requests from a trusted service and get around firewall rules, thereby allowing them to gain unauthorized access to cloud resources. "This case does highlight an inherent risk in using service tags as a single mechanism for vetting incoming network traffic," the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) said in a guidance issued last week. "Service tags are not to be treated as a security boundary and should only be used as a routing mechanism in conjunction with validation controls. Service tags are not a comprehensive way to secure traffic to a customer's origin and do not replace input validation to prevent vulnerabilities that may be associated with web requests." The statement comes in response to findings from cybersecurity firm Tenable, which found that Azure customers whose firewall rules rely on Azure Service Tags could be bypassed. There is no evidence t

The threat actors behind the RedTail cryptocurrency mining malware have added a recently disclosed security flaw impacting Palo Alto Networks firewalls to its exploit arsenal. The addition of the PAN-OS vulnerability to its toolkit has been complemented by updates to the malware, which now incorporates new anti-analysis techniques, according to findings from web infrastructure and security company Akamai. "The attackers have taken a step forward by employing private crypto-mining pools for greater control over mining outcomes despite the increased operational and financial costs," security researchers Ryan Barnett, Stiv Kupchik, and Maxim Zavodchik said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. The infection sequence discovered by Akamai exploits a now-patched vulnerability in PAN-OS tracked as CVE-2024-3400 (CVSS score: 10.0) that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code with root privileges on the firewall. A successful exploitatio

As a vCISO, you are responsible for your client's cybersecurity strategy and risk governance. This incorporates multiple disciplines, from research to execution to reporting. Recently, we published a comprehensive playbook for vCISOs, "Your First 100 Days as a vCISO – 5 Steps to Success" , which covers all the phases entailed in launching a successful vCISO engagement, along with recommended actions to take, and step-by-step examples.  Following the success of the playbook and the requests that have come in from the MSP/MSSP community, we decided to drill down into specific parts of vCISO reporting and provide more color and examples. In this article, we focus on how to create compelling narratives within a report, which has a significant impact on the overall MSP/MSSP value proposition.  This article brings the highlights of a recent guided workshop we held, covering what makes a successful report and how it can be used to enhance engagement with your cyber security clients.

Researchers have detailed a Virtual Private Network (VPN) bypass technique dubbed  TunnelVision  that allows threat actors to snoop on victim's network traffic by just being on the same local network. The "decloaking"  method  has been assigned the CVE identifier  CVE-2024-3661  (CVSS score: 7.6). It impacts all operating systems that implement a DHCP client and has support for DHCP option 121 routes. At its core, TunnelVision involves the routing of traffic without encryption through a VPN by means of an attacker-configured DHCP server using the  classless static route option 121  to set a route on the VPN user's  routing table . It also stems from the fact the DHCP protocol, by design, does not authenticate such option messages, thus exposing them to manipulation. DHCP is a client/server protocol that automatically provides an Internet Protocol (IP) host with its IP address and other related configuration information such as the subnet mask and default gateway 

Two security vulnerabilities have been discovered in F5 Next Central Manager that could be exploited by a threat actor to seize control of the devices and create hidden rogue administrator accounts for persistence. The remotely exploitable flaws "can give attackers full administrative control of the device, and subsequently allow attackers to create accounts on any F5 assets managed by the Next Central Manager," security firm Eclypsium  said  in a new report. A description of the two issues is as follows - CVE-2024-21793  (CVSS score: 7.5) - An OData injection vulnerability that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute malicious SQL statements through the BIG-IP NEXT Central Manager API CVE-2024-26026  (CVSS score: 7.5) - An SQL injection vulnerability that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute malicious SQL statements through the BIG-IP Next Central Manager API Both the flaws impact Next Central Manager versions from 20.0.1 to 20.1.0. The sho

A previously undocumented cyber threat dubbed  Muddling Meerkat  has been observed undertaking sophisticated domain name system (DNS) activities in a likely effort to evade security measures and conduct reconnaissance of networks across the world since October 2019. Cloud security firm Infoblox described the threat actor as likely affiliated with the People's Republic of China (PRC) with the ability to control the Great Firewall ( GFW ), which censors access to foreign websites and manipulates internet traffic to and from the country. The moniker is reference to the "bewildering" nature of their operations and the actor's abuse of DNS open resolvers – which are DNS servers that accept recursive queries from all IP addresses – to send queries from the Chinese IP space. "Muddling Meerkat demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of DNS that is uncommon among threat actors today – clearly pointing out that DNS is a powerful weapon leveraged by adversaries,"

Palo Alto Networks has shared more details of a critical security flaw impacting PAN-OS that has come under active exploitation in the wild by malicious actors. The company described the vulnerability, tracked as  CVE-2024-3400  (CVSS score: 10.0), as "intricate" and a combination of two bugs in versions PAN-OS 10.2, PAN-OS 11.0, and PAN-OS 11.1 of the software. "In the first one, the GlobalProtect service did not sufficiently validate the session ID format before storing them. This enabled the attacker to store an empty file with the attacker's chosen filename," Chandan B. N., senior director of product security at Palo Alto Networks,  said . "The second bug (trusting that the files were system-generated) used the filenames as part of a command."  It's worth noting that while neither of the issues are critical enough on their own, when chained together, they could lead to unauthenticated remote shell command execution. Palo Alto Networks sai

Palo Alto Networks is warning that a critical flaw impacting PAN-OS software used in its GlobalProtect gateways is being actively exploited in the wild. Tracked as  CVE-2024-3400 , the issue has a CVSS score of 10.0, indicating maximum severity. "A command injection vulnerability in the GlobalProtect feature of Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS software for specific PAN-OS versions and distinct feature configurations may enable an unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code with root privileges on the firewall," the company  said  in an advisory published today. The flaw impacts the following versions of PAN-OS, with fixes expected to be released on April 14, 2024 - PAN-OS < 11.1.2-h3 PAN-OS < 11.0.4-h1 PAN-OS < 10.2.9-h1 The company also said that the issue is applicable only to firewalls that have the configurations for both  GlobalProtect gateway  (Network > GlobalProtect > Gateways) and  device telemetry  (Device > Setup > Telemetry) enabled.

Minecraft, with over 500 million registered users and 166 million monthly players, faces significant risks from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, threatening server functionality, player experience, and the game's reputation. Despite the prevalence of DDoS attacks on the game, the majority of incidents go unreported, leaving a gap in awareness and protection. This article explains what happens to a Minecraft server during a DDoS attack and how to protect against such attacks. For an in-depth version of the article,  check out this white paper . When Creepers Breach: What Happens When an Attack Is Successful When a Minecraft server is hit with a DDoS attack, players may have problems with logging in to servers, loading worlds, navigating biomes, using tools, and chatting. They can also experience general lags, disconnections, timeouts, or server crashes. These in-game disruptions can ruin the gaming experience for players while causing financial and reputational losses to

Over 178,000 SonicWall firewalls exposed over the internet are exploitable to at least one of the two security flaws that could be potentially exploited to cause a denial-of-service (DoS) condition and remote code execution (RCE). "The two issues are fundamentally the same but exploitable at different HTTP URI paths due to reuse of a vulnerable code pattern," Jon Williams, a senior security engineer at Bishop Fox,  said  in a technical analysis shared with The Hacker News. The vulnerabilities in question are listed below - CVE-2022-22274  (CVSS score: 9.4) - A stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability in the SonicOS via HTTP request allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to cause DoS or potentially result in code execution in the firewall. CVE-2023-0656  (CVSS score: 7.5) - A stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability in the SonicOS allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to cause DoS, which could result in a crash. While there are no reports of exploitation of the flaws

The cyber attacks targeting the energy sector in Denmark last year may not have had the involvement of the Russia-linked Sandworm hacking group,  new findings  from Forescout show. The intrusions, which  targeted around 22 Danish energy organizations  in May 2023, occurred in two distinct waves, one which exploited a security flaw in Zyxel firewall (CVE-2023-28771) and a follow-on activity cluster that saw the attackers deploy Mirai botnet variants on infected hosts via an as-yet-unknown initial access vector. The first wave took place on May 11, while the second wave lasted from May 22 to 31, 2023. In one such attack detected on May 24, it was observed that the compromised system was communicating with IP addresses (217.57.80[.]18 and 70.62.153[.]174) that were previously used as command-and-control (C2) for the now-dismantled  Cyclops Blink  botnet. Forescout's closer examination of the attack campaign, however, has revealed that not only were the two waves unrelated, but also

A new botnet consisting of firewalls and routers from Cisco, DrayTek, Fortinet, and NETGEAR is being used as a covert data transfer network for advanced persistent threat actors, including the China-linked threat actor called  Volt Typhoon . Dubbed  KV-botnet  by the Black Lotus Labs team at Lumen Technologies, the malicious network is an amalgamation of two complementary activity clusters that have been active since at least February 2022. "The campaign infects devices at the edge of networks, a segment that has emerged as a soft spot in the defensive array of many enterprises, compounded by the shift to remote work in recent years," the company  said . The two clusters – codenamed KV and JDY – are said to be distinct yet working in tandem to facilitate access to high-profile victims as well as establish covert infrastructure. Telemetry data suggests that the botnet is commandeered from IP addresses based in China. While the bots part of JDY engages in broader scanning

Zyxel has released patches to address 15 security issues impacting network-attached storage (NAS), firewall, and access point (AP) devices, including three critical flaws that could lead to authentication bypass and command injection. The  three vulnerabilities  are listed below - CVE-2023-35138  (CVSS score: 9.8) - A command injection vulnerability that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute some operating system commands by sending a crafted HTTP POST request. CVE-2023-4473  (CVSS score: 9.8) - A command injection vulnerability in the web server that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute some operating system commands by sending a crafted URL to a vulnerable device. CVE-2023-4474  (CVSS score: 9.8) - An improper neutralization of special elements vulnerability that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute some operating system commands by sending a crafted URL to a vulnerable device. Also patched by Zyxel are three high-severity flaws ( CVE-

New research has found that close to 12,000 internet-exposed Juniper firewall devices are vulnerable to a recently disclosed remote code execution flaw. VulnCheck, which  discovered  a new exploit for CVE-2023-36845, said it could be  exploited  by an "unauthenticated and remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on Juniper firewalls without creating a file on the system." CVE-2023-36845 refers to a  medium-severity flaw  in the J-Web component of Junos OS that could be weaponized by a threat actor to control certain, important environment variables. It was patched by Juniper Networks last month alongside CVE-2023-36844, CVE-2023-36846, and CVE-2023-36847 in an out-of-cycle update. A subsequent proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit devised by watchTowr combined CVE-2023-36846 and CVE-2023-36845 to upload a PHP file containing malicious shellcode and achieve code execution. The latest exploit, on the other hand, impacts older systems and can be written using a single cURL comma

SonicWall on Wednesday urged customers of Global Management System (GMS) firewall management and Analytics network reporting engine software to apply the latest fixes to secure against a set of 15 security flaws that could be exploited by a threat actor to circumvent authentication and access sensitive information. Of the 15 shortcomings (tracked from CVE-2023-34123 through CVE-2023-34137), four are rated Critical, four are rated High, and seven are rated Medium in severity. The vulnerabilities were disclosed by NCC Group. The flaws impact on-premise versions of GMS 9.3.2-SP1 and before and Analytics 2.5.0.4-R7 and before. Fixes are available in versions GMS 9.3.3 and Analytics 2.5.2. "The suite of vulnerabilities allows an attacker to view data that they are not normally able to retrieve," SonicWall  said . "This might include data belonging to other users, or any other data that the application itself is able to access. In many cases, an attacker can modify or dele

Fortinet has released patches to address a critical security flaw in its FortiGate firewalls that could be abused by a threat actor to achieve remote code execution. The vulnerability, tracked as  CVE-2023-27997 , is "reachable pre-authentication, on every SSL VPN appliance," Lexfo Security researcher Charles Fol, who discovered and reported the flaw alongside Dany Bach,  said  in a tweet over the weekend. Details about the security flaw are currently withheld and Fortinet is yet to release an advisory, although the network security company is expected to publish more details in the coming days. French cybersecurity company Olympe Cyberdefense, in an independent alert,  said  the issue has been patched in versions 6.2.15, 6.4.13, 7.0.12, and 7.2.5. "The flaw would allow a hostile agent to interfere via the VPN, even if the MFA is activated," the firm noted. With Fortinet flaws  emerging  as a  lucrative   attack vector  for threat actors in recent years, it&#

Networking equipment maker Zyxel has released patches for a critical security flaw in its firewall devices that could be exploited to achieve remote code execution on affected systems. The issue, tracked as  CVE-2023-28771 , is rated 9.8 on the CVSS scoring system. Researchers from TRAPA Security have been credited with reporting the flaw. "Improper error message handling in some firewall versions could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute some OS commands remotely by sending crafted packets to an affected device," Zyxel  said  in an advisory on April 25, 2023. Products impacted by the flaw are - ATP (versions ZLD V4.60 to V5.35, patched in ZLD V5.36) USG FLEX (versions ZLD V4.60 to V5.35, patched in ZLD V5.36) VPN (versions ZLD V4.60 to V5.35, patched in ZLD V5.36), and ZyWALL/USG (versions ZLD V4.60 to V4.73, patched in ZLD V4.73 Patch 1) Zyxel has also  addressed  a high-severity post-authentication command injection vulnerability affecting select firewa

Fortinet has released fixes to  address 15 security flaws , including one critical vulnerability impacting FortiOS and FortiProxy that could enable a threat actor to take control of affected systems. The issue, tracked as  CVE-2023-25610 , is rated 9.3 out of 10 for severity and was internally discovered and reported by its security teams. "A buffer underwrite ('buffer underflow') vulnerability in FortiOS and FortiProxy administrative interface may allow a remote unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code on the device and/or perform a DoS on the GUI, via specifically crafted requests," Fortinet  said  in an advisory. Underflow bugs , also called  buffer underruns , occur when the input data is shorter than the reserved space, causing unpredictable behavior or leakage of sensitive data from memory. Other possible consequences include memory corruption that could either be weaponized to induce a crash or execute arbitrary code. Fortinet said it's not

A suspected China-nexus threat actor exploited a recently patched vulnerability in Fortinet FortiOS SSL-VPN as a zero-day in attacks targeting a European government entity and a managed service provider (MSP) located in Africa. Telemetry evidence gathered by Google-owned Mandiant indicates that the exploitation occurred as early as October 2022, at least nearly two months before fixes were released. "This incident continues China's pattern of exploiting internet facing devices, specifically those used for managed security purposes (e.g., firewalls, IPS\IDS appliances etc.)," Mandiant researchers  said  in a technical report. The attacks entailed the use of a sophisticated backdoor dubbed  BOLDMOVE , a Linux variant of which is specifically designed to run on Fortinet's FortiGate firewalls. The intrusion vector in question relates to the exploitation of  CVE-2022-42475 , a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in FortiOS SSL-VPN that could result in unauthenti

Multiple security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in F5 BIG-IP and BIG-IQ devices that, if successfully exploited, to completely compromise affected systems. Cybersecurity firm Rapid7 said the  flaws  could be abused to remote access to the devices and defeat security constraints. The issues impact BIG-IP versions 13.x, 14.x, 15.x, 16.x, and 17.x, and BIG-IQ Centralized Management versions 7.x and 8.x. The two high-severity issues, which were reported to F5 on August 18, 2022, are as follows - CVE-2022-41622  (CVSS score: 8.8) - A cross-site request forgery ( CSRF ) vulnerability through iControl SOAP, leading to unauthenticated remote code execution. CVE-2022-41800  (CVSS score: 8.7) - An iControl REST vulnerability that could allow an authenticated user with an Administrator role to bypass  Appliance mode  restrictions. "By successfully exploiting the worst of the vulnerabilities (CVE-2022-41622), an attacker could gain persistent root access to the device's man