#1 Trusted Cybersecurity News Platform Followed by 4.50+ million
The Hacker News Logo
Get the Free Newsletter
SaaS Security

Vulnerability | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

CISA Warned About Critical Vulnerabilities in Illumina's DNA Sequencing Devices

CISA Warned About Critical Vulnerabilities in Illumina's DNA Sequencing Devices

Jun 06, 2022
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have issued an advisory about critical security vulnerabilities in Illumina's next-generation sequencing ( NGS ) software. Three of the flaws are rated 10 out of 10 for severity on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System ( CVSS ), with two others having severity ratings of 9.1 and 7.4. The issues impact software in medical devices used for "clinical diagnostic use in sequencing a person's DNA or testing for various genetic conditions, or for research use only,"  according to the FDA . "Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities may allow an unauthenticated malicious actor to take control of the affected product remotely and take any action at the operating system level," CISA  said  in an alert. "An attacker could impact settings, configurations, software, or data on the affected product and interact through the affected product with the c
State-Backed Hackers Exploit Microsoft 'Follina' Bug to Target Entities in Europe and U.S

State-Backed Hackers Exploit Microsoft 'Follina' Bug to Target Entities in Europe and U.S

Jun 06, 2022
A suspected state-aligned threat actor has been attributed to a new set of attacks exploiting the Microsoft Office "Follina" vulnerability to target government entities in Europe and the U.S. Enterprise security firm Proofpoint said it blocked attempts at exploiting the remote code execution flaw, which is being tracked as  CVE-2022-30190  (CVSS score: 7.8). No less than 1,000 phishing messages containing a lure document were sent to the targets. "This campaign masqueraded as a salary increase and utilized an RTF with the exploit payload downloaded from 45.76.53[.]253," the company  said  in a series of tweets. The payload, which manifests in the form of a PowerShell script, is Base64-encoded and functions as a downloader to retrieve a second PowerShell script from a remote server named "seller-notification[.]live." "This script checks for virtualization, steals information from local browsers, mail clients and file services, conducts machine re
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
Atlassian Releases Patch for Confluence Zero-Day Flaw Exploited in the Wild

Atlassian Releases Patch for Confluence Zero-Day Flaw Exploited in the Wild

Jun 04, 2022
Atlassian on Friday rolled out fixes to address a  critical security flaw  affecting its Confluence Server and Data Center products that have come under active exploitation by threat actors to achieve remote code execution. Tracked as  CVE-2022-26134 , the issue is similar to  CVE-2021-26084  — another security flaw the Australian software company patched in August 2021. Both relate to a case of Object-Graph Navigation Language ( OGNL ) injection that could be exploited to achieve arbitrary code execution on a Confluence Server or Data Center instance. The newly discovered shortcoming impacts all supported versions of Confluence Server and Data Center, with every version after 1.3.0 also affected. It's been resolved in the following versions - 7.4.17 7.13.7 7.14.3 7.15.2 7.16.4 7.17.4 7.18.1 According to stats from internet asset discovery platform  Censys , there are about 9,325 services across 8,347 distinct hosts running a vulnerable version of Atlassian Confluenc
cyber security

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.
GitLab Issues Security Patch for Critical Account Takeover Vulnerability

GitLab Issues Security Patch for Critical Account Takeover Vulnerability

Jun 03, 2022
GitLab has moved to address a critical security flaw in its service that, if successfully exploited, could result in an account takeover. Tracked as  CVE-2022-1680 , the issue has a CVSS severity score of 9.9 and was discovered internally by the company. The security flaw affects all versions of GitLab Enterprise Edition (EE) starting from 11.10 before 14.9.5, all versions starting from 14.10 before 14.10.4, and all versions starting from 15.0 before 15.0.1. "When group SAML SSO is configured, the SCIM feature (available only on Premium+ subscriptions) may allow any owner of a Premium group to invite arbitrary users through their username and email, then change those users' email addresses via SCIM to an attacker controlled email address and thus — in the absence of 2FA — take over those accounts," GitLab  said . Having achieved this, a malicious actor can also change the display name and username of the targeted account, the DevOps platform provider cautioned in its
Hackers Exploiting Unpatched Critical Atlassian Confluence Zero-Day Vulnerability

Hackers Exploiting Unpatched Critical Atlassian Confluence Zero-Day Vulnerability

Jun 03, 2022
Atlassian has warned of a critical unpatched remote code execution vulnerability impacting Confluence Server and Data Center products that it said is being actively exploited in the wild. The Australian software company credited cybersecurity firm Volexity for identifying the flaw, which is being tracked as  CVE-2022-26134 . "Atlassian has been made aware of current active exploitation of a critical severity unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability in Confluence Data Center and Server," it  said  in an advisory. "There are currently no fixed versions of Confluence Server and Data Center available. Atlassian is working with the highest priority to issue a fix." Specifics of the security flaw have been withheld until a software patch is available. All supported versions of Confluence Server and Data Center are affected, although it's expected that all versions of the enterprise solution are potentially vulnerable. The earliest impacted version is
New Unpatched Horde Webmail Bug Lets Hackers Take Over Server by Sending Email

New Unpatched Horde Webmail Bug Lets Hackers Take Over Server by Sending Email

Jun 01, 2022
A new unpatched security vulnerability has been disclosed in the open-source Horde Webmail client that could be exploited to achieve remote code execution on the email server simply by sending a specially crafted email to a victim. "Once the email is viewed, the attacker can silently take over the complete mail server without any further user interaction," SonarSource said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "The vulnerability exists in the default configuration and can be exploited with no knowledge of a targeted Horde instance." The issue, which has been assigned the CVE identifier  CVE-2022-30287 , was reported to the vendor on February 2, 2022. The maintainers of the Horde Project did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the unresolved vulnerability. At its core, the issue makes it possible for an authenticated user of a Horde instance to run malicious code on the underlying server by taking advantage of a quirk in how the client
Chinese Hackers Begin Exploiting Latest Microsoft Office Zero-Day Vulnerability

Chinese Hackers Begin Exploiting Latest Microsoft Office Zero-Day Vulnerability

Jun 01, 2022
An advanced persistent threat (APT) actor aligned with Chinese state interests has been observed weaponizing the new  zero-day flaw  in Microsoft Office to achieve code execution on affected systems. "TA413 CN APT spotted [in-the-wild] exploiting the Follina zero-day using URLs to deliver ZIP archives which contain Word Documents that use the technique," enterprise security firm Proofpoint  said  in a tweet. "Campaigns impersonate the 'Women Empowerments Desk' of the Central Tibetan Administration and use the domain tibet-gov.web[.]app." TA413  is best known for its campaigns aimed at the Tibetan diaspora to deliver implants such as  Exile RAT  and  Sepulcher  as well as a rogue Firefox browser extension dubbed  FriarFox . The high-severity security flaw, dubbed Follina and tracked as CVE-2022-30190 (CVSS score: 7.8), relates to a case of remote code execution that abuses the "ms-msdt:" protocol URI scheme to execute arbitrary code. Specific
Microsoft Releases Workarounds for Office Vulnerability Under Active Exploitation

Microsoft Releases Workarounds for Office Vulnerability Under Active Exploitation

May 31, 2022
Microsoft on Monday published guidance for a newly discovered  zero-day security flaw  in its Office productivity suite that could be exploited to achieve code execution on affected systems. The weakness, now assigned the identifier  CVE-2022-30190 , is rated 7.8 out of 10 for severity on the CVSS vulnerability scoring system. Microsoft Office versions Office 2013, Office 2016, Office 2019, and Office 2021, as well as Professional Plus editions, are impacted.  "To help protect customers, we've published CVE-2022-30190 and additional guidance  here ," a Microsoft spokesperson told The Hacker News in an emailed statement. The  Follina  vulnerability, which came to light late last week, involved a real-world exploit that leveraged the shortcoming in a weaponized Word document to execute arbitrary PowerShell code by making use of the "ms-msdt:" URI scheme. The sample was uploaded to VirusTotal from Belarus. But first signs of exploitation of the flaw date back
Watch Out! Researchers Spot New Microsoft Office Zero-Day Exploit in the Wild

Watch Out! Researchers Spot New Microsoft Office Zero-Day Exploit in the Wild

May 30, 2022
Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to a zero-day flaw in Microsoft Office that could be abused to achieve arbitrary code execution on affected Windows systems. The vulnerability came to light after an independent cybersecurity research team known as nao_sec uncovered a Word document (" 05-2022-0438.doc ") that was uploaded to VirusTotal from an IP address in Belarus. "It uses Word's external link to load the HTML and then uses the 'ms-msdt' scheme to execute PowerShell code," the researchers  noted  in a series of tweets last week. According to security researcher Kevin Beaumont, who dubbed the flaw "Follina," the maldoc leverages Word's  remote template  feature to fetch an HTML file from a server, which then makes use of the "ms-msdt://" URI scheme to run the malicious payload. The shortcoming has been so named because the malicious sample references 0438, which is the area code of Follina, a municipality in t
Experts Detail New RCE Vulnerability Affecting Google Chrome Dev Channel

Experts Detail New RCE Vulnerability Affecting Google Chrome Dev Channel

May 27, 2022
Details have emerged about a recently patched critical remote code execution vulnerability in the V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine used in Google Chrome and Chromium-based browsers. The issue relates to a case of use-after-free in the instruction optimization component, successful exploitation of which could "allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the browser." The flaw, which  was identified  in the Dev channel version of Chrome 101, was reported to Google by Weibo Wang, a security researcher at Singapore cybersecurity company  Numen Cyber Technology  and has since been quietly fixed by the company. "This vulnerability occurs in the instruction selection stage, where the wrong instruction has been selected and resulting in memory access exception," Wang said . Use-after-free flaws  occur  when previous-freed memory is accessed, inducing undefined behavior and causing a program to crash, use corrupted data, or even achieve execution
SIM-based Authentication Aims to Transform Device Binding Security to End Phishing

SIM-based Authentication Aims to Transform Device Binding Security to End Phishing

May 24, 2022
Let's face it: we all use email, and we all use passwords. Passwords create inherent vulnerability in the system. The success rate of phishing attacks is  skyrocketing , and opportunities for the attack have greatly multiplied as lives moved online. All it takes is one password to be compromised for all other users to become victims of a data breach.  To deliver additional security, therefore, digital identities rely on verification plasters. MFA (multi-factor authentication) often falls back to knowledge factors such as password resets and OTP codes, but these are still vulnerable. As long as credentials can be shared or intercepted, they can be misused.  What is needed is a paradigm shift – from knowledge-based credentials to strong possession-factor security that can't be compromised, alongside other verification security such as biometrics. A new possession-factor API now aims to do precisely that, replacing knowledge-based credentials, by using the SIM card for possess
New Unpatched Bug Could Let Attackers Steal Money from PayPal Users

New Unpatched Bug Could Let Attackers Steal Money from PayPal Users

May 23, 2022
A security researcher claims to have discovered an unpatched vulnerability in PayPal's money transfer service that could allow attackers to trick victims into unknowingly completing attacker-directed transactions with a single click. Clickjacking, also called UI redressing, refers to a technique wherein an unwitting user is tricked into clicking seemingly innocuous webpage elements like buttons with the goal of downloading malware, redirecting to malicious websites, or disclose sensitive information. This is typically achieved by displaying an invisible page or HTML element on top of the visible page, resulting in a scenario where users are fooled into thinking that they are clicking the legitimate page when they are in fact clicking the rogue element overlaid atop it. "Thus, the attacker is 'hijacking' clicks meant for [the legitimate] page and routing them to another page, most likely owned by another application, domain, or both," security researcher h4x0r
Cisco Issues Patch for New IOS XR Zero-Day Vulnerability Exploited in the Wild

Cisco Issues Patch for New IOS XR Zero-Day Vulnerability Exploited in the Wild

May 21, 2022
Cisco on Friday rolled out fixes for a medium-severity vulnerability affecting IOS XR Software that it said has been exploited in real-world attacks. Tracked as CVE-2022-20821 (CVSS score: 6.5), the issue relates to an open port vulnerability that could be abused by an unauthenticated, remote attacker to connect to a Redis instance and achieve code execution. "A successful exploit could allow the attacker to write to the Redis in-memory database, write arbitrary files to the container filesystem, and retrieve information about the Redis database," Cisco  said  in an advisory. "Given the configuration of the sandboxed container that the Redis instance runs in, a remote attacker would be unable to execute remote code or abuse the integrity of the Cisco IOS XR Software host system." The flaw, which it said was identified during the resolution of a technical assistance center (TAC) case, impacts Cisco 8000 Series routers running IOS XR Software that has the health
Watch Out! Hackers Begin Exploiting Recent Zyxel Firewalls RCE Vulnerability

Watch Out! Hackers Begin Exploiting Recent Zyxel Firewalls RCE Vulnerability

May 17, 2022
Image source: z3r00t The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Monday  added  two security flaws, including the recently disclosed remote code execution bug affecting Zyxel firewalls, to its  Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog , citing evidence of active exploitation. Tracked as  CVE-2022-30525 , the vulnerability is rated 9.8 for severity and relates to a command injection flaw in select versions of the Zyxel firewall that could enable an unauthenticated adversary to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system. Impacted devices include - USG FLEX 100, 100W, 200, 500, 700 USG20-VPN, USG20W-VPN ATP 100, 200, 500, 700, 800, and VPN series The issue, for which patches were released by the Taiwanese firm in late April (ZLD V5.30), became public knowledge on May 12 following a coordinated disclosure process with Rapid7. Source: Shadowserver Merely a day later, the Shadowserver Foundation  said  it began detecting exploitation attempts,
SonicWall Releases Patches for New Flaws Affecting SSLVPN SMA1000 Devices

SonicWall Releases Patches for New Flaws Affecting SSLVPN SMA1000 Devices

May 14, 2022
SonicWall has published an  advisory  warning of a trio of security flaws in its Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 1000 appliances, including a high-severity authentication bypass vulnerability. The weaknesses in question impact SMA 6200, 6210, 7200, 7210, 8000v running firmware versions 12.4.0 and 12.4.1. The list of vulnerabilities is below - CVE-2022-22282  (CVSS score: 8.2) - Unauthenticated Access Control Bypass CVE-2022-1702  (CVSS score: 6.1) - URL redirection to an untrusted site (open redirection) CVE-2022-1701  (CVSS score: 5.7) - Use of a shared and hard-coded cryptographic key Successful exploitation of the aforementioned bugs could allow an attacker to unauthorized access to internal resources and even redirect potential victims to malicious websites. Tom Wyatt of the Mimecast Offensive Security Team has been credited with discovering and reporting the vulnerabilities. SonicWall noted that the flaws do not affect SMA 1000 series running versions earlier than 12.4.0, SM
Google Created 'Open Source Maintenance Crew' to Help Secure Critical Projects

Google Created 'Open Source Maintenance Crew' to Help Secure Critical Projects

May 13, 2022
Google on Thursday  announced  the creation of a new "Open Source Maintenance Crew" to focus on bolstering the security of critical open source projects. Additionally, the tech giant pointed out  Open Source Insights  as a tool for analyzing packages and their dependency graphs, using it to determine "whether a vulnerability in a dependency might affect your code." "With this information, developers can understand how their software is put together and the consequences to changes in their dependencies," the company said. The development comes as security and trust in the open source software ecosystem has been increasingly thrown into question in the aftermath of a  string  of  supply chain   attacks  designed to compromise developer workflows. In December 2021, a critical flaw in the ubiquitous open source  Log4j logging library  left several companies scrambling to patch their systems against potential abuse. The announcement also comes less than
Zyxel Releases Patch for Critical Firewall OS Command Injection Vulnerability

Zyxel Releases Patch for Critical Firewall OS Command Injection Vulnerability

May 13, 2022
Zyxel has moved to address a critical security vulnerability affecting Zyxel firewall devices that enables unauthenticated and remote attackers to gain arbitrary code execution. "A command injection vulnerability in the CGI program of some firewall versions could allow an attacker to modify specific files and then execute some OS commands on a vulnerable device," the company  said  in an advisory published Thursday. Cybersecurity firm Rapid7, which  discovered  and reported the flaw on April 13, 2022, said that the weakness could permit a remote unauthenticated adversary to execute code as the "nobody" user on impacted appliances. Tracked as  CVE-2022-30525  (CVSS score: 9.8), the flaw impacts the following products, with patches released in version ZLD V5.30 - USG FLEX 100(W), 200, 500, 700 USG FLEX 50(W) / USG20(W)-VPN ATP series, and  VPN series Rapid 7 noted that there are at least 16,213 vulnerable Zyxel devices exposed to the internet, making it a
Researchers Develop RCE Exploit for the Latest F5 BIG-IP Vulnerability

Researchers Develop RCE Exploit for the Latest F5 BIG-IP Vulnerability

May 09, 2022
Days after F5 released patches for a critical remote code execution vulnerability affecting its BIG-IP family of products, security researchers are warning that they were able to create an exploit for the shortcoming. Tracked  CVE-2022-1388  (CVSS score: 9.8), the flaw relates to an iControl REST authentication bypass that, if successfully exploited, could lead to remote code execution, allowing an attacker to gain initial access and take control of an affected system. This could range anywhere from deploying cryptocurrency miners to dropping web shells for follow-on attacks, such as information theft and ransomware. "We have reproduced the fresh CVE-2022-1388 in F5's BIG-IP," cybersecurity company Positive Technologies  said  in a tweet on Friday. "Patch ASAP!" The critical security vulnerability impacts the following versions of BIG-IP products - 16.1.0 - 16.1.2 15.1.0 - 15.1.5 14.1.0 - 14.1.4 13.1.0 - 13.1.4 12.1.0 - 12.1.6 11.6.1 - 11.6.5 Fixe
QNAP Releases Firmware Patches for 9 New Flaws Affecting NAS Devices

QNAP Releases Firmware Patches for 9 New Flaws Affecting NAS Devices

May 07, 2022
QNAP, Taiwanese maker of network-attached storage (NAS) devices, on Friday released security updates to patch nine security weaknesses, including a critical issue that could be exploited to take over an affected system. "A vulnerability has been reported to affect QNAP VS Series NVR running QVR," QNAP  said  in an advisory. "If exploited, this vulnerability allows remote attackers to run arbitrary commands." Tracked as  CVE-2022-27588  (CVSS score: 9.8), the vulnerability has been addressed in QVR 5.1.6 build 20220401 and later. Credited with reporting the flaw is the Japan Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center (JPCERT/CC). Aside from the critical shortcoming, QNAP has also resolved three high-severity and five medium-severity bugs in its software - CVE-2021-38693  (CVSS score: 5.3) - A  path traversal vulnerability  in thttpd affecting QNAP devices running QTS, QuTS hero, QuTScloud, and QVR Pro Appliance, leading to information disclosure C
Google Releases Android Update to Patch Actively Exploited Vulnerability

Google Releases Android Update to Patch Actively Exploited Vulnerability

May 06, 2022
Google has released monthly security patches for Android with fixes for 37 flaws across different components, one of which is a fix for an actively exploited Linux kernel vulnerability that came to light earlier this year. Tracked as  CVE-2021-22600  (CVSS score: 7.8), the vulnerability is ranked "High" for severity and could be exploited by a local user to escalate privileges or deny service. The issue relates to a  double-free vulnerability  residing in the  Packet  network protocol implementation in the Linux kernel that could cause memory corruption, potentially leading to denial-of-service or execution of arbitrary code. Patches were released by different Linux distributions, including  Debian ,  Red Hat ,  SUSE , and  Ubuntu  in December 2021 and January 2022. "There are indications that CVE-2021-22600 may be under limited, targeted exploitation," Google  noted  in its Android Security Bulletin for May 2022. Specifics about the nature of the attacks are
Cybersecurity Resources