Microsoft | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The infamous cybercrime group known as Scattered Spider has incorporated ransomware strains such as RansomHub and Qilin into its arsenal, Microsoft has revealed. Scattered Spider is the designation given to a threat actor that's known for its sophisticated social engineering schemes to breach targets and establish persistence for follow-on exploitation and data theft. It also has a history of targeting VMWare ESXi servers and deploying BlackCat ransomware. It shares overlaps with activity clusters tracked by the broader cybersecurity community under the monikers Gold Harvest, 0ktapus, Octo Tempest, and UNC3944. Last month, it was reported that a key member of the group was arrested in Spain. RansomHub, which arrived on the scene earlier this February, has been assessed to be a rebrand of another ransomware strain called Knight, according to an analysis from Broadcom-owned Symantec last month. "RansomHub is a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) payload used by more and mor

An advanced persistent threat (APT) group called Void Banshee has been observed exploiting a recently disclosed security flaw in the Microsoft MHTML browser engine as a zero-day to deliver an information stealer called Atlantida . Cybersecurity firm Trend Micro, which observed the activity in mid-May 2024, said the vulnerability – tracked as CVE-2024-38112 – was used as part of a multi-stage attack chain using specially crafted internet shortcut (URL) files. "Variations of the Atlantida campaign have been highly active throughout 2024 and have evolved to use CVE-2024-38112 as part of Void Banshee infection chains," security researchers Peter Girnus and Aliakbar Zahravi said . "The ability of APT groups like Void Banshee to exploit disabled services such as [Internet Explorer] poses a significant threat to organizations worldwide." The findings dovetail with prior disclosures from Check Point, which told The Hacker News of a campaign leveraging the same shortc

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.

Microsoft has released patches to address a total of 143 security flaws as part of its monthly security updates, two of which have come under active exploitation in the wild. Five out of the 143 flaws are rated Critical, 136 are rated Important, and four are rated Moderate in severity. The fixes are in addition to 33 vulnerabilities that have been addressed in the Chromium-based Edge browser over the past month. The two security shortcomings that have come under exploitation are below - CVE-2024-38080 (CVSS score: 7.8) - Windows Hyper-V Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability CVE-2024-38112 (CVSS score: 7.5) - Windows MSHTML Platform Spoofing Vulnerability "Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires an attacker to take additional actions prior to exploitation to prepare the target environment," Microsoft said of CVE-2024-38112. "An attacker would have to send the victim a malicious file that the victim would have to execute." Check Point securi

Threat actors are exploiting a novel attack technique in the wild that leverages specially crafted management saved console (MSC) files to gain full code execution using Microsoft Management Console ( MMC ) and evade security defenses. Elastic Security Labs has codenamed the approach GrimResource after identifying an artifact (" sccm-updater.msc ") that was uploaded to the VirusTotal malware scanning platform on June 6, 2024. "When a maliciously crafted console file is imported, a vulnerability in one of the MMC libraries can lead to running adversary code, including malware," the company said in a statement shared with The Hacker News. "Attackers can combine this technique with DotNetToJScript to gain arbitrary code execution, which can lead to unauthorized access, system takeover and more." The use of uncommon file types as a malware distribution vector is seen as an alternative attempt by adversaries to get around security guardrails erected

Microsoft on Thursday revealed that it's delaying the rollout of the controversial artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Recall feature for Copilot+ PCs. To that end, the company said it intends to shift from general availability to a preview available first in the Windows Insider Program ( WIP ) in the coming weeks. "We are adjusting the release model for Recall to leverage the expertise of the Windows Insider community to ensure the experience meets our high standards for quality and security," it said in an update. "This decision is rooted in our commitment to providing a trusted, secure and robust experience for all customers and to seek additional feedback prior to making the feature available to all Copilot+ PC users." First unveiled last month, Recall was originally slated for a broad release on June 18, 2024, but has since waded into controversial waters after it was widely panned as a privacy and security risk and an alluring target for threat ac

Microsoft has released security updates to address 51 flaws as part of its Patch Tuesday updates for June 2024. Of the 51 vulnerabilities, one is rated Critical and 50 are rated Important. This is in addition to 17 vulnerabilities resolved in the Chromium-based Edge browser over the past month. None of the security flaws have been actively exploited in the wild, with one of them listed as publicly known at the time of the release. This concerns a third-party advisory tracked as CVE-2023-50868 (CVSS score: 7.5), a denial-of-service issue impacting the DNSSEC validation process that could cause CPU exhaustion on a DNSSEC-validating resolver. It was reported by researchers from the National Research Center for Applied Cybersecurity (ATHENE) in Darmstadt back in February, alongside KeyTrap ( CVE-2023-50387 , CVSS score: 7.5). "NSEC3 is an improved version of NSEC (Next Secure) that provides authenticated denial of existence," Tyler Reguly, associate director of Security

Microsoft on Friday said it will disable its much-criticized artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Recall feature by default and make it an opt-in. Recall , currently in preview and coming exclusively to Copilot+ PCs on June 18, 2024, functions as an "explorable visual timeline" by capturing screenshots of what appears on users' screens every five seconds, which are subsequently analyzed and parsed to surface relevant information. But the feature, meant to serve as some sort of an AI-enabled photographic memory, was met with instantaneous backlash from the security and privacy community, which excoriated the company for having not thought through enough and implementing adequate safeguards that could prevent malicious actors from easily gaining a window into a victim's digital life. The recorded information could include screenshots of documents, emails, or messages containing sensitive details that may have been deleted or shared temporarily using disappearing

Google is urging third-party Android app developers to incorporate generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) features in a responsible manner. The new guidance from the search and advertising giant is an effort to combat problematic content, including sexual content and hate speech, created through such tools. To that end, apps that generate content using AI must ensure they don't create Restricted Content , have a mechanism for users to report or flag offensive information , and market them in a manner that accurately represents the app's capabilities. App developers are also being recommended to rigorously test their AI models to ensure they respect user safety and privacy. "Be sure to test your apps across various user scenarios and safeguard them against prompts that could manipulate your generative AI feature to create harmful or offensive content," Prabhat Sharma, director of trust and safety for Google Play, Android, and Chrome, said . The development com

The Russian GRU-backed threat actor APT28 has been attributed as behind a series of campaigns targeting networks across Europe with the HeadLace malware and credential-harvesting web pages. APT28, also known by the names BlueDelta, Fancy Bear, Forest Blizzard, FROZENLAKE, Iron Twilight, ITG05, Pawn Storm, Sednit, Sofacy, and TA422, is an advanced persistent threat (APT) group affiliated with Russia's strategic military intelligence unit, the GRU. The hacking crew operates with a high level of stealth and sophistication, often demonstrating their adaptability through deep preparedness and custom tooling, and relying on legitimate internet services (LIS) and living off-the-land binaries (LOLBins) to conceal their operations within regular network traffic. "From April to December 2023, BlueDelta deployed Headlace malware in three distinct phases using geofencing techniques to target networks throughout Europe with a heavy focus on Ukraine," Recorded Future's Insikt

Cybersecurity researchers are alerting of phishing campaigns that abuse  Cloudflare Workers  to serve phishing sites that are used to harvest users' credentials associated with Microsoft, Gmail, Yahoo!, and cPanel Webmail. The attack method, called transparent phishing or adversary-in-the-middle ( AitM ) phishing, "uses Cloudflare Workers to act as a reverse proxy server for a legitimate login page, intercepting traffic between the victim and the login page to capture credentials, cookies, and tokens," Netskope researcher Jan Michael Alcantara  said  in a report. A majority of phishing campaigns hosted on Cloudflare Workers over the past 30 days have targeted victims in Asia, North America, and Southern Europe, spanning technology, financial services, and banking sectors. The cybersecurity firm said that an increase in traffic to Cloudflare Workers-hosted phishing pages was first registered in Q2 2023, noting it observed a spike in the total number of distinct domains

Microsoft on Wednesday outlined its plans to deprecate Visual Basic Script (VBScript) in the second half of 2024 in favor of more advanced alternatives such as JavaScript and PowerShell. "Technology has advanced over the years, giving rise to more powerful and versatile scripting languages such as JavaScript and PowerShell," Microsoft Program Manager Naveen Shankar  said . "These languages offer broader capabilities and are better suited for modern web development and automation tasks." The tech giant originally  announced  its plans to gradually sunset VBScript in October 2023. The scripting language, also called Visual Basic Scripting Edition, was first introduced by Microsoft in 1996 as a Windows system component, offering users the ability to automate tasks and develop interactive web pages using Internet Explorer and Edge (in  Internet Explorer mode ). The announced deprecation plan consists of three phases, with the first phase kicking off in the second h

 Microsoft on Monday confirmed its plans to deprecate NT LAN Manager (NTLM) in Windows 11 in the second half of the year, as it announced a slew of new security measures to harden the widely-used desktop operating system. "Deprecating NTLM has been a huge ask from our security community as it will strengthen user authentication, and deprecation is planned in the second half of 2024," the tech giant  said . The Windows maker  originally announced  its decision to drop NTLM in favor of Kerberos for authentication in October 2023. NTLM's lack of support for cryptographic methods such as AES or SHA-256 notwithstanding, the protocol has also been rendered susceptible to relay attacks, a technique that has been widely exploited by the Russia-linked  APT28 actor  via zero-day flaws in Microsoft Outlook. Other changes coming to Windows 11 include enabling  Local Security Authority (LSA) protection  by default for new consumer devices and the use of virtualization-based secur