Information security | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a sophisticated information stealer campaign that impersonates legitimate brands to distribute malware like DanaBot and StealC . The activity cluster, orchestrated by Russian-speaking cybercriminals and collectively codenamed Tusk, is said to encompass several sub-campaigns, leveraging the reputation of the platforms to trick users into downloading the malware using bogus sites and social media accounts. "All the active sub-campaigns host the initial downloader on Dropbox," Kaspersky researchers Elsayed Elrefaei and AbdulRhman Alfaifi said . "This downloader is responsible for delivering additional malware samples to the victim's machine, which are mostly info-stealers (DanaBot and StealC) and clippers." Of the 19 sub-campaigns identified to date, three are said to be currently active. The name "Tusk" is a reference to the word "Mammoth" used by the threat actors in log messages associated with t...

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered new stealer malware that's designed to specifically target Apple macOS systems. Dubbed Banshee Stealer, it's offered for sale in the cybercrime underground for a steep price of $3,000 a month and works across both x86_64 and ARM64 architectures.  "Banshee Stealer targets a wide range of browsers, cryptocurrency wallets, and around 100 browser extensions, making it a highly versatile and dangerous threat," Elastic Security Labs said in a Thursday report. The web browsers and crypto wallets targeted by the malware comprise Safari, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Brave, Microsoft Edge, Vivaldi, Yandex, Opera, OperaGX, Exodus, Electrum, Coinomi, Guarda, Wasabi Wallet, Atomic, and Ledger. It's also equipped to harvest system information and data from iCloud Keychain passwords and Notes, as well as incorporate a slew of anti-analysis and anti-debugging measures to determine if it's running in a virtual environment in a...

SolarWinds has released patches to address a critical security vulnerability in its Web Help Desk software that could be exploited to execute arbitrary code on susceptible instances. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-28986 (CVSS score: 9.8), has been described as a deserialization bug. "SolarWinds Web Help Desk was found to be susceptible to a Java deserialization remote code execution vulnerability that, if exploited, would allow an attacker to run commands on the host machine," the company said in an advisory. "While it was reported as an unauthenticated vulnerability, SolarWinds has been unable to reproduce it without authentication after thorough testing." The flaw impacts all versions of SolarWinds Web Help Desk including and prior to 12.8.3. It has been addressed in hotfix version 12.8.3 HF 1 . The disclosure comes as Palo Alto Networks patched a high-severity vulnerability affecting Cortex XSOAR that could result in command injection and code execution. ...

SaaS Adoption is Skyrocketing, Resilience Hasn't Kept Pace SaaS platforms have revolutionized how businesses operate. They simplify collaboration, accelerate deployment, and reduce the overhead of managing infrastructure. But with their rise comes a subtle, dangerous assumption: that the convenience of SaaS extends to resilience. It doesn't. These platforms weren't built with full-scale data protection in mind . Most follow a shared responsibility model — wherein the provider ensures uptime and application security, but the data inside is your responsibility. In a world of hybrid architectures, global teams, and relentless cyber threats, that responsibility is harder than ever to manage. Modern organizations are being stretched across: Hybrid and multi-cloud environments with decentralized data sprawl Complex integration layers between IaaS, SaaS, and legacy systems Expanding regulatory pressure with steeper penalties for noncompliance Escalating ransomware threats and inside...

A newly discovered attack vector in GitHub Actions artifacts dubbed ArtiPACKED could be exploited to take over repositories and gain access to organizations' cloud environments. "A combination of misconfigurations and security flaws can make artifacts leak tokens, both of third party cloud services and GitHub tokens, making them available for anyone with read access to the repository to consume," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 researcher Yaron Avital said in a report published this week. "This allows malicious actors with access to these artifacts the potential of compromising the services to which these secrets grant access." The cybersecurity company said it primarily observed the leakage of GitHub tokens (e.g., GITHUB_TOKEN and ACTIONS_RUNTIME_TOKEN), which could not only give malicious actors unauthorized access to the repositories, but also grant them the ability to poison the source code and get it pushed to production via CI/CD workflows. Artifacts in...

An ongoing social engineering campaign with alleged links to the Black Basta ransomware group has been linked to "multiple intrusion attempts" with the goal of conducting credential theft and deploying a malware dropper called SystemBC. "The initial lure being utilized by the threat actors remains the same: an email bomb followed by an attempt to call impacted users and offer a fake solution," Rapid7 said , adding "external calls were typically made to the impacted users via Microsoft Teams." The attack chain then convinces the user to download and install a legitimate remote access software named AnyDesk, which acts as a channel for deploying follow-on payloads and exfiltrate sensitive data. This includes the use of an executable called "AntiSpam.exe" that purports to download email spam filters and urges users to enter their Windows credentials to complete the update. The step is followed by the execution of several binaries, DLL files, ...

A team of researchers from the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security in Germany has disclosed an architectural bug impacting Chinese chip company T-Head's XuanTie C910 and C920 RISC-V CPUs that could allow attackers to gain unrestricted access to susceptible devices. The vulnerability has been codenamed GhostWrite. It has been described as a direct CPU bug embedded in the hardware, as opposed to a side-channel or transient execution attack. "This vulnerability allows unprivileged attackers, even those with limited access, to read and write any part of the computer's memory and to control peripheral devices like network cards," the researchers said . "GhostWrite renders the CPU's security features ineffective and cannot be fixed without disabling around half of the CPU's functionality." CISPA found that the CPU has faulty instructions in its vector extension, an add-on to the RISC-V ISA designed to handle larger data values than the base Instru...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of security flaws in the Roundcube webmail software that could be exploited to execute malicious JavaScript in a victim's web browser and steal sensitive information from their account under specific circumstances. "When a victim views a malicious email in Roundcube sent by an attacker, the attacker can execute arbitrary JavaScript in the victim's browser," cybersecurity company Sonar said in an analysis published this week. "Attackers can abuse the vulnerability to steal emails, contacts, and the victim's email password as well as send emails from the victim's account." Following responsible disclosure on June 18, 2024, the three vulnerabilities have been addressed in Roundcube versions 1.6.8 and 1.5.8 released on August 4, 2024. The list of vulnerabilities is as follows - CVE-2024-42008 - A cross-site scripting flaw via a malicious email attachment served with a dangerous Content-Type head...

An unnamed media organization in South Asia was targeted in November 20233 using a previously undocumented Go-based backdoor called GoGra. "GoGra is written in Go and uses the Microsoft Graph API to interact with a command-and-control (C&C) server hosted on Microsoft mail services," Symantec, part of Broadcom, said in a report shared with The Hacker News. It's currently not clear how it's delivered to target environments. However, GoGra is specifically configured to read messages from an Outlook username "FNU LNU" whose subject line starts with the word "Input." The message contents are then decrypted using the AES-256 algorithm in Cipher Block Chaining (CBC) mode using a key, following which it executes the commands via cmd.exe. The results of the operation are then encrypted and sent to the same user with the subject "Output." GoGra is said to be the work of a nation-state hacking group known as Harvester owing to its simila...

Google has announced that it's adding a new layer of protection to its Chrome browser through what's called app-bound encryption to prevent information-stealing malware from grabbing cookies on Windows systems. "On Windows, Chrome uses the Data Protection API ( DPAPI ) which protects the data at rest from other users on the system or cold boot attacks," Will Harris from the Chrome security team said . "However, the DPAPI does not protect against malicious applications able to execute code as the logged in user – which info-stealers take advantage of." App-bound encryption is an improvement over DPAPI in that it interweaves an app's identity (i.e., Chrome in this case) into encrypted data to prevent another app on the system from accessing it when decryption is attempted. "Because the app-bound service is running with system privileges, attackers need to do more than just coax a user into running a malicious app," Harris said. "Now, th...

The threat actors behind an ongoing malware campaign targeting software developers have demonstrated new malware and tactics, expanding their focus to include Windows, Linux, and macOS systems. The activity cluster, dubbed DEV#POPPER and linked to North Korea, has been found to have singled out victims across South Korea, North America, Europe, and the Middle East. "This form of attack is an advanced form of social engineering, designed to manipulate individuals into divulging confidential information or performing actions that they might normally not," Securonix researchers Den Iuzvyk and Tim Peck said in a new report shared with The Hacker News. DEV#POPPER is the moniker assigned to an active malware campaign that tricks software developers into downloading booby-trapped software hosted on GitHub under the guise of a job interview. It shares overlaps with a campaign tracked by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 under the name Contagious Interview . Signs that the campaign ...

An unknown threat actor has been linked to a massive scam campaign that exploited an email routing misconfiguration in email security vendor Proofpoint's defenses to send millions of messages spoofing various popular companies like Best Buy, IBM, Nike, and Walt Disney, among others. "These emails echoed from official Proofpoint email relays with authenticated SPF and DKIM signatures , thus bypassing major security protections — all to deceive recipients and steal funds and credit card details," Guardio Labs researcher Nati Tal said in a detailed report shared with The Hacker News. The cybersecurity company has given the campaign the name EchoSpoofing . The activity is believed to have commenced in January 2024, with the threat actor exploiting the loophole to send as many as three million emails per day on average, a number that hit a peak of 14 million in early June as Proofpoint began to enact countermeasures. "The most unique and powerful part of this domain ...

A threat actor known as Stargazer Goblin has set up a network of inauthentic GitHub accounts to fuel a Distribution-as-a-Service (DaaS) that propagates a variety of information-stealing malware and netting them $100,000 in illicit profits over the past year. The network, which comprises over 3,000 accounts on the cloud-based code hosting platform, spans thousands of repositories that are used to share malicious links or malware, per Check Point, which has dubbed it "Stargazers Ghost Network." Some of the malware families propagated using this method include Atlantida Stealer, Rhadamanthys, RisePro, Lumma Stealer, and RedLine, with the bogus accounts also engaged in starring, forking, watching, and subscribing to malicious repositories to give them a veneer of legitimacy. The network is believed to have been active since August 2022 in some preliminary form, although an advertisement for the DaaS wasn't spotted in the dark until early July 2023. "Threat actors no...

The initial onboarding stage is a crucial step for both employees and employers. However, this process often involves the practice of sharing temporary first-day passwords, which can expose organizations to security risks. Traditionally, IT departments have been cornered into either sharing passwords in plain text via email or SMS, or arranging in-person meetings to verbally communicate these credentials. Both methods carry inherent risks, from man-in-the-middle attacks to the simple human error of password mismanagement. This vulnerability creates openings for hackers, who will aim to use weak or intercepted passwords to gain unauthorized access to corporate systems. In this post, we explore the pitfalls of traditional password distribution methods during employee onboarding and introduce a solution that enhances security without compromising the ease of access for new hires. It's possible for organizations to safeguard their digital environments right from the start, ensuring a se...

The Iranian nation-state actor known as MuddyWater has been observed using a never-before-seen backdoor as part of a recent attack campaign, shifting away from its well-known tactic of deploying legitimate remote monitoring and management (RMM) software for maintaining persistent access. That's according to independent findings from cybersecurity firms Check Point and Sekoia, which have codenamed the malware strain BugSleep and MuddyRot , respectively. "Compared to previous campaigns, this time MuddyWater changed their infection chain and did not rely on the legitimate Atera remote monitoring and management tool (RMM) as a validator," Sekoia said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Instead, we observed that they used a new and undocumented implant." Some elements of the campaign were first shared by Israeli cybersecurity company ClearSky on June 9, 2024. Targets include countries like Turkey, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Portugal. ...

American telecom service provider AT&T has confirmed that threat actors managed to access data belonging to "nearly all" of its wireless customers as well as customers of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) using AT&T's wireless network. "Threat actors unlawfully accessed an AT&T workspace on a third-party cloud platform and, between April 14 and April 25, 2024, exfiltrated files containing AT&T records of customer call and text interactions that occurred between approximately May 1 and October 31, 2022, as well as on January 2, 2023," it said . This comprises telephone numbers with which an AT&T or MVNO wireless number interacted – including telephone numbers of AT&T landline customers and customers of other carriers, counts of those interactions, and aggregate call duration for a day or month. A subset of these records also contained one or more cell site identification numbers , potentially allowing the threat actors to triang...