Hard Drive Firmware Hacking | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Several of Seagate's 3rd generation Wireless Hard drives have a secret backdoor for hackers that puts users' data at risk. A Recent study done by the security researchers at Tangible Security firm disclosed an " undocumented Telnet services " with a hard-coded password in Seagate Wireless Hard Drives. The secret Telnet Vulnerability ( CVE-2015-2874 ) with an inbuilt user account (default username and password — "root") allows an attacker to access the device remotely, left users data vulnerable to theft. According to US-CERT (Computer Emergency and Response Team) public advisory, multiple models of Seagate hard drives contain multiple vulnerabilities. Affected devices are: Seagate Wireless Plus Mobile Storage Seagate Wireless Mobile Storage (Wirelessly streaming your tablet and smartphone's data) LaCie FUEL (Wirelessly extending storage for iPads) The violation that an attacker can activate is, they can gain root access to the device and ac...

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) may be hiding highly-sophisticated hacking payloads in the firmware of consumer hard drives over the last 15 to 20 years in a campaign, giving the agency the means to eavesdrop on thousands of targets' computers, according to an analysis by Kaspersky labs and subsequent reports. 'EQUATION GROUP' BEHIND THE MALWARE The team of malicious actors is dubbed the the " Equation Group " by researchers from Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab, and describes them as " probably one of the most sophisticated cyber attack groups in the world," and "the most advanced threat actor we have seen. " The security researchers have documented 500 infections by Equation Group and believes that the actual number of victims likely reaches into the tens of thousands because of a self-destruct mechanism built into the malware. TOP MANUFACTURERS' HARD DRIVES ARE INFECTED Russian security experts reportedly uncovered sta...

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been a cornerstone of organizational cybersecurity. Nearly as old as the discipline of cybersecurity itself, it aims to help organizations identify and address potential security issues before they become serious problems. Yet, in recent years, the limitations of this approach have become increasingly evident.  At its core, Vulnerability Management processes remain essential for identifying and addressing weaknesses. But as time marches on and attack avenues evolve, this approach is beginning to show its age. In a recent report, How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management (Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, 8 November 2024, Mitchell Schneider Et Al.), we believe Gartner® addresses this point precisely and demonstrates how organizations can – and must – shift from a vulnerability-centric strategy to a broader Exposure Management (EM) framework. We feel it's more than a worthwhile read an...