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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

Compromising the browser is a high-return target for adversaries. Browser extensions, which are small software modules that are added to the browser and can enhance browsing experiences, have become a popular browser attack vector. This is because they are widely adopted among users and can easily turn malicious through developer actions or attacks on legitimate extensions. Recent incidents like  DataSpii  and the  Nigelthorn  malware attack have exposed the extent of damage that malicious extensions can inflict. In both cases, users innocently installed extensions that compromised their privacy and security. The underlying issue lies in the permissions granted to extensions. These permissions, often excessive and lacking granularity, allow attackers to exploit them. What can organizations do to protect themselves from the risks of browser extensions without barring them from use altogether (an act that would be nearly impossible to enforce)?  A new report by LayerX, "Unveiling the

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

Fortinet on Monday revealed that the newly patched critical security vulnerability impacting its firewall and proxy products is being actively exploited in the wild. Tracked as  CVE-2022-40684  (CVSS score: 9.6), the flaw relates to an authentication bypass in FortiOS, FortiProxy, and FortiSwitchManager that could allow a remote attacker to perform unauthorized operations on the administrative interface via specially crafted HTTP(S) requests. "Fortinet is aware of an instance where this vulnerability was exploited, and recommends immediately validating your systems against the following indicator of compromise in the device's logs: user='Local_Process_Access,'" the company  noted  in an advisory. The list of impacted devices is below - FortiOS version 7.2.0 through 7.2.1 FortiOS version 7.0.0 through 7.0.6 FortiProxy version 7.2.0 FortiProxy version 7.0.0 through 7.0.6 FortiSwitchManager version 7.2.0, and FortiSwitchManager version 7.0.0 Updates hav

Fortinet has privately warned its customers of a security flaw affecting FortiGate firewalls and FortiProxy web proxies that could potentially allow an attacker to perform unauthorized actions on susceptible devices. Tracked as CVE-2022-40684 (CVSS score: 9.6), the critical flaw relates to an authentication bypass vulnerability that may permit an unauthenticated adversary to carry out arbitrary operations on the administrative interface via a specially crafted HTTP(S) request. The issue impacts the following versions, and has been addressed in FortiOS versions  7.0.7  and  7.2.2 , and FortiProxy versions 7.0.7 and 7.2.1 released this week: FortiOS - From 7.0.0 to 7.0.6 and from 7.2.0 to 7.2.1 FortiProxy - From 7.0.0 to 7.0.6 and 7.2.0 "Due to the ability to exploit this issue remotely, Fortinet is strongly recommending all customers with the vulnerable versions to perform an immediate upgrade," the company  cautioned  in an alert shared by a security researcher w

Often, organizations think of firewall security as a one-and-done type of solution. They install firewalls, then assume that they are "good to go" without investigating whether or not these solutions are actually protecting their systems in the best way possible. "Set it and forget it!" Instead of just relying on firewalls and assuming that they will always protect their businesses from cyber risk, executives need to start asking deeper questions about them. As with most areas of business, it's important to take a critical look at each solution that your organization relies on for security. So, let's break down a few questions that you and your team should be asking about firewall security to get a more accurate view into your network defense posture. 1 — What does your team's firewall knowledge look like? In order to properly service and upkeep firewalls, your team needs to have at least a baseline knowledge of how firewalls operate. It's espe

Zyxel has released  patches  to address four security flaws affecting its firewall, AP Controller, and AP products to execute arbitrary operating system commands and steal select information. The list of security vulnerabilities is as follows - CVE-2022-0734  - A cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in some firewall versions that could be exploited to access information stored in the user's browser, such as cookies or session tokens, via a malicious script. CVE-2022-26531  - Several input validation flaws in command line interface (CLI) commands for some versions of firewall, AP controller, and AP devices that could be exploited to cause a system crash. CVE-2022-26532  - A command injection vulnerability in the " packet-trace " CLI command for some versions of firewall, AP controller, and AP devices that could lead to execution of arbitrary OS commands. CVE-2022-0910  - An authentication bypass vulnerability affecting select firewall versions that could p

Image source: z3r00t The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Monday  added  two security flaws, including the recently disclosed remote code execution bug affecting Zyxel firewalls, to its  Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog , citing evidence of active exploitation. Tracked as  CVE-2022-30525 , the vulnerability is rated 9.8 for severity and relates to a command injection flaw in select versions of the Zyxel firewall that could enable an unauthenticated adversary to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system. Impacted devices include - USG FLEX 100, 100W, 200, 500, 700 USG20-VPN, USG20W-VPN ATP 100, 200, 500, 700, 800, and VPN series The issue, for which patches were released by the Taiwanese firm in late April (ZLD V5.30), became public knowledge on May 12 following a coordinated disclosure process with Rapid7. Source: Shadowserver Merely a day later, the Shadowserver Foundation  said  it began detecting exploitation attempts,

Zyxel has moved to address a critical security vulnerability affecting Zyxel firewall devices that enables unauthenticated and remote attackers to gain arbitrary code execution. "A command injection vulnerability in the CGI program of some firewall versions could allow an attacker to modify specific files and then execute some OS commands on a vulnerable device," the company  said  in an advisory published Thursday. Cybersecurity firm Rapid7, which  discovered  and reported the flaw on April 13, 2022, said that the weakness could permit a remote unauthenticated adversary to execute code as the "nobody" user on impacted appliances. Tracked as  CVE-2022-30525  (CVSS score: 9.8), the flaw impacts the following products, with patches released in version ZLD V5.30 - USG FLEX 100(W), 200, 500, 700 USG FLEX 50(W) / USG20(W)-VPN ATP series, and  VPN series Rapid 7 noted that there are at least 16,213 vulnerable Zyxel devices exposed to the internet, making it a

SonicWall has released security updates to contain a critical flaw across multiple firewall appliances that could be weaponized by an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code and cause a denial-of-service (DoS) condition. Tracked as  CVE-2022-22274  (CVSS score: 9.4), the issue has been described as a stack-based buffer overflow in the web management interface of SonicOS that could be triggered by sending a specially crafted HTTP request, leading to remote code execution or DoS. The flaw impacts 31 different SonicWall Firewall devices running versions 7.0.1-5050 and earlier, 7.0.1-R579 and earlier, and 6.5.4.4-44v-21-1452 and earlier. ZiTong Wang of Hatlab has been credited with reporting the issue. The network security company  said  it's not aware of any instance of active exploitation in the wild leveraging the weakness, and that no proof-of-concept (PoC) or malicious use of the vulnerability has been publicly reported to date. That said, users of the a

Cybersecurity firm Sophos on Monday warned that a recently patched critical security vulnerability in its firewall product is being actively exploited in real-world attacks. The flaw, tracked as  CVE-2022-1040 , is rated 9.8 out of 10 on the CVSS scoring system and impacts Sophos Firewall versions 18.5 MR3 (18.5.3) and older. It relates to an authentication bypass vulnerability in the User Portal and Webadmin interface that, if successfully weaponized, allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code. "Sophos has observed this vulnerability being used to target a small set of specific organizations primarily in the South Asia region," the company  noted  in a revised advisory published Monday. "We have informed each of these organizations directly." The flaw has been addressed in a hotfix that's automatically installed for customers who have the " Allow automatic installation of hotfixes " setting enabled. As a workaround, Sophos is recommending

ASUS routers have emerged as the target of a nascent botnet called Cyclops Blink , almost a month after it was revealed the malware abused WatchGuard firewall appliances as a stepping stone to gain remote access to breached networks. According to a  new report  published by Trend Micro, the botnet's "main purpose is to build an infrastructure for further attacks on high-value targets," given that none of the infected hosts "belong to critical organizations, or those that have an evident value on economic, political, or military espionage." Intelligence agencies from the U.K. and the U.S. have  characterized  Cyclops Blink as a replacement framework for  VPNFilter , another malware that has exploited network devices, primarily small office/home office (SOHO) routers, and network-attached storage (NAS) devices. Both VPNFilter and Cyclops Blink have been attributed to a Russian state-sponsored actor tracked as Sandworm (aka Voodoo Bear), which has also been li

A newly disclosed security flaw in the Linux kernel could be leveraged by a local adversary to gain elevated privileges on vulnerable systems to execute arbitrary code, escape containers, or induce a  kernel panic . Tracked as  CVE-2022-25636  (CVSS score: 7.8), the vulnerability impacts Linux kernel versions 5.4 through 5.6.10 and is a result of a heap out-of-bounds write in the netfilter subcomponent in the kernel. The issue was  discovered  by Nick Gregory, a senior threat researcher at Sophos. "This flaw allows a local attacker with a user account on the system to gain access to out-of-bounds memory, leading to a system crash or a privilege escalation threat," Red Hat  said  in an advisory published on February 22, 2022. Similar alerts have been released by  Debian ,  Oracle Linux ,  SUSE , and  Ubuntu . Netfilter is a  framework  provided by the Linux kernel that enables various networking-related operations, including packet filtering, network address translation,

Intelligence agencies in the U.K. and the U.S. disclosed details of a new botnet malware called  Cyclops Blink  that's been attributed to the Russian-backed Sandworm hacking group and deployed in attacks dating back to 2019. "Cyclops Blink appears to be a replacement framework for the VPNFilter malware exposed in 2018, which exploited network devices, primarily small office/home office (SOHO) routers, and network-attached storage (NAS) devices," the agencies  said . "In common with VPNFilter, Cyclops Blink deployment also appears indiscriminate and widespread." The  joint government advisory  comes from the U.K. National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the U.S. Sandworm , aka Voodoo Bear, is the name assigned to a  highly advanced adversary  operating out of Russia that's known to be active since at least 2008.

2020 was a year of relentless disruptions. The protective layer of secured enterprise networks and controlled IT environments of the physical premises did not exist. Over the past year,  CISOs (Chief Information Security Officers)  have had to grapple with the challenges of bolstering the security posture, minimizing risks, and ensuring business continuity in the new normal. The rise in volumes and sophistication of cyberattacks in the rather borderless IT situation only compounded the challenges. All this has necessitated a shift in cybersecurity priorities in 2021. In this article, we have put together the top cybersecurity priorities for 2021 and beyond that will enable businesses to be fully equipped for future disruptions, without compromising on security. Cybersecurity Priorities for 2021 Strengthen the Cybersecurity Fundamentals CISOs must focus on security fundamentals, including asset management, password management, cyber hygiene, configuration,  vulnerability management