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PoC Released for Outlook Flaw that Microsoft Patched 6 Month After Discovery

PoC Released for Outlook Flaw that Microsoft Patched 6 Month After Discovery

Jun 22, 2019
As we reported two days ago, Microsoft this week released an updated version of its Outlook app for Android that patches a severe remote code execution vulnerability ( CVE-2019-1105 ) that impacted over 100 million users. However, at that time, very few details of the flaw were available in the advisory, which just revealed that the earlier versions of the email app contained a cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw that could allow attackers to run scripts in the context of the current user just by sending a specially crafted email to the victims. Now, Bryan Appleby from F5 Networks, one of the security researchers who reported this issue independently to Microsoft, released more details and proof-of-concept for the Outlook vulnerability that he reported to the tech giant almost six months ago. In a blog post published Friday, Appleby revealed that while exchanging some JavaScript code with his friends over an email, he accidentally discovered a cross-site scripting (XSS) issue th
Hackers Compromise Microsoft Support Agent to Access Outlook Email Accounts

Hackers Compromise Microsoft Support Agent to Access Outlook Email Accounts

Apr 13, 2019
If you have an account with Microsoft Outlook email service, there is a possibility that your account information has been compromised by an unknown hacker or group of hackers, Microsoft confirmed The Hacker News. Earlier this year, hackers managed to breach Microsoft's customer support portal and access information related to some email accounts registered with the company's Outlook service. Yesterday, a user on Reddit publicly posted a screenshot of an email which he received from Microsoft warning that unknown attackers were able to access some information of his OutLook account between 1 January 2019 and 28 March 2019. Another user on Reddit also confirmed that he/she too received the same email from Microsoft. According to the incident notification email, as shown below, attackers were able to compromise credentials for one of Microsoft's customer support agents and used it to unauthorisedly access some information related to the affected accounts, but not
Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Mar 21, 2024Operational Technology / SCADA Security
When you read reports about cyber-attacks affecting operational technology (OT), it's easy to get caught up in the hype and assume every single one is sophisticated. But are OT environments all over the world really besieged by a constant barrage of complex cyber-attacks? Answering that would require breaking down the different types of OT cyber-attacks and then looking back on all the historical attacks to see how those types compare.  The Types of OT Cyber-Attacks Over the past few decades, there has been a growing awareness of the need for improved cybersecurity practices in IT's lesser-known counterpart, OT. In fact, the lines of what constitutes a cyber-attack on OT have never been well defined, and if anything, they have further blurred over time. Therefore, we'd like to begin this post with a discussion around the ways in which cyber-attacks can either target or just simply impact OT, and why it might be important for us to make the distinction going forward. Figure 1 The Pu
Buggy Microsoft Outlook Sending Encrypted S/MIME Emails With Plaintext Copy For Months

Buggy Microsoft Outlook Sending Encrypted S/MIME Emails With Plaintext Copy For Months

Oct 12, 2017
Beware, If you are using S/MIME protocol over Microsoft Outlook to encrypt your email communication, you need to watch out. From at least last 6 months, your messages were being sent in both encrypted and unencrypted forms, exposing all your secret and sensitive communications to potential eavesdroppers. S/MIME, or Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, is an end-to-end encryption protocol—based on public-key cryptography and works just like SSL connections—that enables users to send digitally signed and encrypted messages. According to a security advisory published by SEC Consult earlier this week, a severe bug (CVE-2017-11776) in Microsoft Outlook email client causes S/MIME encrypted emails to be sent with their unencrypted versions attached. When Outlook users make use of S/MIME to encrypt their messages and format their emails as plain text, the vulnerability allows the seemingly encrypted emails to be sent in both encrypted as well as human-readable clear text f
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Automated remediation solutions are crucial for security

websiteWing SecurityShadow IT / SaaS Security
Especially when it comes to securing employees' SaaS usage, don't settle for a longer to-do list. Auto-remediation is key to achieving SaaS security.
Microsoft Pays $13,000 to Hacker for Finding Authentication Flaw

Microsoft Pays $13,000 to Hacker for Finding Authentication Flaw

Apr 04, 2016
A security researcher has won $13,000 bounty from Microsoft for finding a critical flaw in its main authentication system that could allow hackers to gain access to a user's Outlook, Azure and Office accounts. The vulnerability has been uncovered by UK-based security consultant Jack Whitton and is similar to Microsoft's OAuth CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) in Live.com discovered by Synack security researcher Wesley Wineberg. However, the main and only difference between the vulnerabilities is that: Flaw discovered by Wineberg affected Microsoft's OAuth protection mechanism while the one discovered by Whitton affected Microsoft's main authentication system. Microsoft handles authentication across its online services including Outlook, Azure and Office through requests made to login.live.com, login.windows.net, and login.microsoftonline.com. Now, for example, if a user browses to outlook.office.com, he/she redirects to a login.microsoftonline
Microsoft Pays $24,000 Bounty to Hacker for Finding 'Account Hacking' Technique

Microsoft Pays $24,000 Bounty to Hacker for Finding 'Account Hacking' Technique

Oct 08, 2015
A security researcher has won $24,000 from Microsoft for finding a critical flaw in its Live.com authentication system that could allow hackers to gain access to a user's complete Outlook account or other Microsoft services. Microsoft's Live.com is the authentication system that everyone go through while attempting to authenticate to Outlook.com and a large number of other Microsoft services, including OneDrive, Windows Phone, Skype, and Xbox LIVE. Hacking Hotmail (Outlook.com) Account It's one account for all services. So, if say, Outlook wants to access other apps, it uses a standard set of authentication code called OAuth . OAuth is an open standard for authorization that keeps your passwords safe on third-party sites and instead of sharing your password, it shares a special key called 'Access token' to access the app. OAuth authorizations are accomplished through a prompt, as shown below and to allow an app to gain access to your account, you n
New Variant of Emotet Banking Malware targets German Users

New Variant of Emotet Banking Malware targets German Users

Jan 07, 2015
A new Spam email campaign making the rounds in Germany are delivering a new variant of a powerful banking malware , a financial threat designed to steal users' online banking credentials, according to security researchers from Microsoft. The malware, identified as Emotet , was first spotted last June by security vendors at Trend Micro. The most standout features of Emotet is its network sniffing ability , which enables it to capture data sent over secured HTTPS connections by hooking into eight network APIs, according to Trend Micro. Microsoft has been monitoring a new variant of Emotet banking malware , Trojan:Win32/Emotet.C , since November last year. This new variant was sent out as part of a spam email campaign that peaked in November. Emotet has been distributed through spam messages, which either contain a link to a website hosting the malware or a PDF document icon that is actually the malware. HeungSoo Kang of Microsoft's Malware Protection Center identifi
Microsoft Outlook App for Android Devices Stores Emails Unencrypted on File System

Microsoft Outlook App for Android Devices Stores Emails Unencrypted on File System

May 22, 2014
If you have an account with Microsoft's popular free email service Outlook.com, and using Outlook app for Android, then there is a bad news for you. Microsoft's Android app for Outlook.com,  provides users to access their Outlook emails on their Android devices, fails to provide security and encryption. LOOPHOLES DISCOVERED Researchers from ' Include Security ' firm claims to have found multiple vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Outlook app for Android, that leaves users' email data vulnerable to hackers and other malicious third party apps. By default, Email attachments are stored into easily accessible folders on the Android filesystem Email Database ( Body, Subject ) is stored locally in an unencrypted manner App's 'Pin Code' feature doesn't protect or encrypt email data. EMAIL ATTACHMENTS ARE ACCESSIBLE TO ANY OTHER APPS Today almost every applications available at Google Play Store generally ask for  READ_EXTERNAL_STORA
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