Password Management | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Juniper Networks is warning that Session Smart Router (SSR) products with default passwords are being targeted as part of a malicious campaign that deploys the Mirai botnet malware. The company said it's issuing the advisory after "several customers" reported anomalous behavior on their Session Smart Network (SSN) platforms on December 11, 2024. "These systems have been infected with the Mirai malware and were subsequently used as a DDoS attack source to other devices accessible by their network," it said . "The impacted systems were all using default passwords." Mirai , which has had its source code leaked in 2016, has spawned several variants over the years. The malware is capable of scanning for known vulnerabilities as well as default credentials to infiltrate devices and enlist them into a botnet for mounting distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. To mitigate such threats, organizations are recommended to change their passwords with i...

Privileged access management (PAM) plays a pivotal role in building a strong security strategy. PAM empowers you to significantly reduce cybersecurity risks, gain tighter control over privileged access, achieve regulatory compliance, and reduce the burden on your IT team.  As an established provider of a PAM solution , we've witnessed firsthand how PAM transforms organizational security. In this article, we aim to show you how PAM can secure your company in real, impactful ways.  1. Enforcing the principle of least privilege Giving users just enough access to perform their duties is fundamental to maintaining a robust security posture. PAM solutions enable you to grant minimum permissions to employees essential for their work, helping you prevent privilege misuse and potential security incidents. For example, with PAM, you can securely grant access to sensitive payment systems exclusively for your finance department. When you enforce the principle of least privilege at t...

Every week seems to bring news of another data breach, and it's no surprise why: securing sensitive data has become harder than ever. And it's not just because companies are dealing with orders of magnitude more data. Data flows and user roles are constantly shifting, and data is stored across multiple technologies and cloud environments. Not to mention, compliance requirements are only getting stricter and more elaborate.  The problem is that while the data landscape has evolved rapidly, the usual strategies for securing that data are stuck in the past. Gone are the days when data lived in predictable places, with access controlled by a chosen few. Today, practically every department in the business needs to use customer data, and AI adoption means huge datasets, and a constant flux of permissions, use cases, and tools. Security teams are struggling to implement effective strategies for securing sensitive data, and a new crop of tools, called data security platforms, have appear...

Password resets can be frustrating for end users. Nobody likes being interrupted by the 'time to change your password' notification – and they like it even less when the new passwords they create are rejected by their organization's password policy. IT teams share the pain, with resetting passwords via service desk tickets and support calls being an everyday burden. Despite this, it's commonly accepted that all passwords should expire after a set period of time.  Why is this the case? Do you need password expiries at all? Explore the reason expiries exist and why setting passwords to 'never expire' might save some headaches, but not be the best idea for cybersecurity.  Why do we have password expiries? The traditional 90-day password reset policy stems from the need to protect against brute-force attacks . Organizations typically store passwords as hashes, which are scrambled versions of the actual passwords created using cryptographic hash functions (CHFs). When a user en...

Imagine a world where you never have to remember another password. Seems like a dream come true for both end users and IT teams, right? But as the old saying goes, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."  If your organization is like many, you may be contemplating a move to passwordless authentication. But the reality is that a passwordless security approach comes with its own set of pitfalls and perils. In this post, we'll discuss the real-world complexity of going passwordless and explore why strengthening your existing password protocols may be the simpler solution.  The appeal of passwordless authentication Password-related vulnerabilities pose a major threat to organizational security. According to research by  LastPass , a full 80% of data breaches stem from weak, reused, or compromised passwords. This sobering statistic highlights the appeal of passwordless systems, which offer a way to completely circumvent the risks associated with traditional pas...

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 US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cybersecurity framework is one of the world's most important guidelines for securing networks. It can be applied to any number of applications, including SaaS.  One of the challenges facing those tasked with securing SaaS applications is the different settings found in each application. It makes it difficult to develop a configuration policy that will apply to an HR app that manages employees, a marketing app that manages content, and an R&D app that manages software versions, all while aligning with NIST compliance standards.  However, there are several settings that can be applied to nearly every app in the SaaS stack. In this article, we'll explore some universal configurations, explain why they are important, and guide you in setting them in a way that improves your SaaS apps' security posture.  Start with Admins Role-based access control (RBAC) is a key to NIST adherence and should be applied to ev...

The Russia-linked threat actor known as Turla has been observed using a new backdoor called  TinyTurla-NG  as part of a three-month-long campaign targeting Polish non-governmental organizations in December 2023. "TinyTurla-NG, just like TinyTurla, is a small 'last chance' backdoor that is left behind to be used when all other unauthorized access/backdoor mechanisms have failed or been detected on the infected systems," Cisco Talos  said  in a technical report published today. TinyTurla-NG is so named for exhibiting similarities with TinyTurla, another implant used by the adversarial collective in intrusions aimed at the U.S., Germany, and Afghanistan since at least 2020. TinyTurla was  first documented  by the cybersecurity company in September 2021. Turla, also known by the names Iron Hunter, Pensive Ursa, Secret Blizzard (formerly Krypton), Snake, Uroburos, and Venomous Bear, is a Russian state-affiliated threat actor linked to the Federal Security S...

Popular password management solution 1Password said it detected suspicious activity on its Okta instance on September 29 following the support system breach, but reiterated that no user data was accessed. "We immediately terminated the activity, investigated, and found no compromise of user data or other sensitive systems, either employee-facing or user-facing," Pedro Canahuati, 1Password CTO,  said  in a Monday notice. The breach is said to have occurred using a session cookie after a member of the IT team shared a HAR file with Okta Support, with the threat actor performing the below set of actions - Attempted to access the IT team member's user dashboard, but was blocked by Okta Updated an existing IDP tied to our production Google environment Activated the IDP Requested a report of administrative users The company said it was alerted to the malicious activity after the IT team member received an email about the "requested" administrative user repor...

In today's interconnected world, where organisations regularly exchange sensitive information with customers, partners and employees, secure collaboration has become increasingly vital. However, collaboration can pose a security risk if not managed properly. To ensure that collaboration remains secure, organisations need to take steps to protect their data. Since collaborating is essential for almost any team to succeed, shouldn't you be able to do it securely? Whether you're sharing a Wi-Fi password, a social media account, or the passwords to a financial account, you deserve peace of mind. The risks of not protecting your sensitive data can be disastrous, from data breaches and reputational damage to legal ramifications and financial loss. But let's face it: Secure collaboration can be a real nightmare. Challenges of Secure Collaboration and Password Sharing It's another day in the office, and your team needs to share a ridiculous amount of sensitive informati...

The  August 2022 security breach  of LastPass may have been more severe than previously disclosed by the company. The popular password management service on Thursday revealed that malicious actors obtained a trove of personal information belonging to its customers that include their encrypted password vaults by using data siphoned from the earlier break-in. Among the data stolen are "basic customer account information and related metadata including company names, end-user names, billing addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers, and the IP addresses from which customers were accessing the LastPass service," the company  said . The August 2022 incident, which  remains  a subject of an ongoing investigation, involved the miscreants accessing source code and proprietary technical information from its development environment via a single compromised employee account. LastPass said this permitted the unidentified attacker to obtain credentials and keys that...

Multiple high-severity vulnerabilities have been disclosed in Passwordstate password management solution that could be exploited by an unauthenticated remote adversary to obtain a user's plaintext passwords. "Successful exploitation allows an unauthenticated attacker to exfiltrate passwords from an instance, overwrite all stored passwords within the database, or elevate their privileges within the application," Swiss cybersecurity firm modzero AG  said  in a report published this week. "Some of the individual vulnerabilities can be chained to gain a shell on the Passwordstate host system and dump all stored passwords in cleartext, starting with nothing more than a valid username." Passwordstate, developed by an Australian company named Click Studios, has over  29,000 customers  and is used by more than 370,000 IT professionals. One of the flaws also impacts  Passwordstate version 9.5.8.4  for the Chrome web browser. The latest version of the browser a...

Google has officially begun rolling out support for  passkeys , the next-generation passwordless login standard, to its stable version of Chrome web browser. "Passkeys are a significantly safer replacement for passwords and other phishable authentication factors," the tech giant's Ali Sarraf  said . "They cannot be reused, don't leak in server breaches, and protect users from phishing attacks." The improved security feature, which is available in version 108, comes nearly two months after Google  began testing the option  across Android, macOS, and Windows 11. Passkeys  obviate the need for passwords by requiring users to authenticate themselves during sign in by unlocking their nearby Android or iOS device using biometrics. This, however, calls for websites to build passkey support on their sites using the  WebAuthn API . Essentially, the technology works by creating a unique cryptographic key pair to associate with an account for the app or website ...