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Someone Hijacking Unsecured MongoDB Databases for Ransom

Someone Hijacking Unsecured MongoDB Databases for Ransom

Jan 04, 2017
Nearly two years back, we warned users about publicly accessible MongoDB instances – almost 600 Terabytes (TB) – over the Internet which require no authentication, potentially leaving websites and servers at risk of hacking. These MongoDB instances weren't exposed due to any flaw in its software, but due to a misconfiguration (bad security practice) that let any remote attacker access MongoDB databases without using any special hacking tool. MongoDB later resolved the issue in the next version of its software by setting unrestricted remote access by default in the configuration, thousands of site administrators have not updated their servers yet. But trust me, they'll now regret this! A Hacker is now hijacking and wiping out unsecured MongoDB databases , but keeping a copy of those databases for asking administrators a ransom of 0.2 Bitcoins (nearly US$211) to return the lost data. So, admins without backups are left in a bind. In fact, the rising price of Bitcoin
3 Critical Zero-Day Flaws Found in PHP 7 — One Remains Unpatched!

3 Critical Zero-Day Flaws Found in PHP 7 — One Remains Unpatched!

Dec 29, 2016
Three critical zero-day vulnerabilities have been discovered in PHP 7 that could allow an attacker to take complete control over 80 percent of websites which run on the latest version of the popular web programming language. The critical vulnerabilities reside in the unserialized mechanism in PHP 7 – the same mechanism that was found to be vulnerable in PHP 5 as well, allowing hackers to compromise Drupal, Joomla, Magento, vBulletin and PornHub websites and other web servers in the past years by sending maliciously crafted data in client cookies. Security researchers at Check Point's exploit research team spent several months examining the unserialized mechanism in PHP 7 and discovered "three fresh and previously unknown vulnerabilities" in the mechanism. While researchers discovered flaws in the same mechanism, the vulnerabilities in PHP 7 are different from what was found in PHP 5. Tracked as CVE-2016-7479, CVE-2016-7480, and CVE-2016-7478, the zero-day flaw
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
Multiple Critical Remotely Exploitable Flaws Discovered in Memcached Caching System

Multiple Critical Remotely Exploitable Flaws Discovered in Memcached Caching System

Nov 02, 2016
Hey Webmasters, are you using Memcached to boost the performance of your website? Beware! It might be vulnerable to remote hackers. Three critical Remote Code Execution vulnerabilities have been reported in Memcached by security researcher Aleksandar Nikolich at Cisco Talos Group that expose major websites, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, to hackers. Memcached is a fabulous piece of open-source distributed caching system that allows objects to be stored in memory. It has been designed to speed up dynamic web applications by reducing stress on the database that helps administrators to increase performance and scale web applications. Memcached is widely used by thousands upon thousands of websites, including popular social networking sites such as Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, Github, and many more. Nikolich says that he discovered multiple integer overflow bugs in Memcached that could be exploited to remotely run arbitrary code on the targeted s
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.
Researcher finds a way to Delete and Modify Facebook Messages Sent to Other Users

Researcher finds a way to Delete and Modify Facebook Messages Sent to Other Users

Jun 07, 2016
Sometimes I receive emails from our readers who wanted to know how to hack Facebook account , but just to delete some of their messages they have sent to their friends or colleagues mistakenly or under wrong circumstances like aggression. How to hack a Facebook account? It is probably the biggest "n00b" question you will see on the Internet. The solution for this query is hard to find — but recently researchers have shown that how you can modify or alter your messages once you have pressed the SEND button in Facebook Messenger. According to the researcher  Roman Zaikin  from cyber security firm Check Point , a simple HTML tweak can be used to exploit Facebook online chat as well as its Messenger app, potentially allowing anyone to modify or delete any of his/her sent message, photo, file, and link. Though the bug is simple, it could be exploited by malicious users to send a legitimate link in a Facebook chat or group chat, and later change it to a malicious link t
Joomla 3.4.5 patches Critical SQL Injection Vulnerability

Joomla 3.4.5 patches Critical SQL Injection Vulnerability

Oct 23, 2015
Joomla – one of the most popular open source Content Management System (CMS) software packages, has reportedly patched three critical vulnerabilities in its software. The flaws, exist in the Joomla version 3.2 to 3.4.4, include SQL injection vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to take admin privileges on most customer websites. The patch was an upgrade to Joomla version 3.4.5  and only contained security fixes. The vulnerability, discovered by Trustwave SpiderLabs researcher Asaf Orpani and Netanel Rubin of PerimeterX, could be exploited to attack a website with SQL injections. SQL injection ( SQLi ) is an injection attack wherein a bad actor can inject/insert malicious SQL commands/query (malicious payloads) through the input data from the client to the application. The vulnerability is one of the oldest, most powerful and most dangerous flaw that could affect any website or web application that uses an SQL-based database. The recent SQLi in Jooml
WordPress Analytics Plugin Leaves 1.3 Million Sites Vulnerable to Hackers

WordPress Analytics Plugin Leaves 1.3 Million Sites Vulnerable to Hackers

Feb 25, 2015
A critical vulnerability has been discovered in one of the most popular plugins of the the WordPress content management platform that puts more than one Million websites at risks of being completely hijacked by the attackers. The vulnerability actually resides in most versions of a WordPress plugin called Wettable Powder Slimstat (WP-Slimstat) . While there are more than 70 million websites on the Internet currently running WordPress, more than 1.3 Million of them use the 'WP-Slimstat' Plugin , making it one of the popular plugins of WordPress for powerful real-time web analytic. All the WP-Slimstat versions prior to the latest release of Slimstat 3.9.6 contain an easily guessable 'secret' key which is used to sign data sent to and from the visiting end-user computers, explained in a blog post published Tuesday by Web security firm Sucuri. Once the weak 'secret' key is break, an attacker could perform an SQL injection attack against the target website
Google releases Cloud-based Web App Vulnerability Scanner and Assessment Tool

Google releases Cloud-based Web App Vulnerability Scanner and Assessment Tool

Feb 20, 2015
Google on Thursday unleashed its own free web application vulnerability scanner tool, which the search engine giant calls Google Cloud Security Scanner , that will potentially scan developers' applications for common security vulnerabilities on its cloud platform more effectively. SCANNER ADDRESSES TWO MAJOR WEB VULNERABILITIES Google launched the Google Cloud Security Scanner in beta. The New web application vulnerability scanner allows App Engine developers to regularly scan their applications for two common web application vulnerabilities: Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Mixed Content Scripts Despite several free web application vulnerability scanner and vulnerability assessment tools are available in the market, Google says these website vulnerability scanners are typically hard to set up and " built for security professionals, " not for web application developers that run the apps on the Google App Engine. While Google Cloud Security Scanner will be ea
Website Backdoor Scripts Leverage the Pastebin Service

Website Backdoor Scripts Leverage the Pastebin Service

Jan 08, 2015
The popular copy and paste website ' Pastebin ' created a decade ago for software developers and even by hackers groups to share source code, dumps and stolen data, has more recently been leveraged by cyber criminals to target millions of users. Compromising a website and then hosting malware on it has become an old tactic for hackers, and now they are trying their hands in compromising vast majority of users in a single stroke. Researchers have discovered that hackers are now using Pastebin to spread malicious backdoor code. According to a blog post published yesterday by a senior malware researcher at Sucuri , Denis Sinegubko, the hackers are leveraging the weakness in older versions of the RevSlider , a popular and a premium WordPress plugin. The plugin comes packaged and bundled into the websites' themes in such a way that many website owners don't even know they have it. In order to exploit the vulnerability, first hackers look for a RevSlider plugin i
Google App Engine — More than 30 Vulnerabilities Discovered

Google App Engine — More than 30 Vulnerabilities Discovered

Dec 08, 2014
Security researchers have discovered a number of critical vulnerabilities in the Java environment of the Google App Engine (GAE) that enables attackers to bypass critical security sandbox defenses. Google App Engine is Google's PaaS (Platform as a Service) Cloud computing Platform for developing and hosting web applications in Google-managed data centers. GAE offers to run custom-built programs using a wide variety of popular languages and frameworks, out of which many are built on the Java environment. The vulnerabilities was reported by Security Explorations, the same security research company that carried out multiple researches related to Java in past. The discovery was announced on the Full Disclosure security mailing list by Adam Gowdiak , founder and CEO of Security Explorations. According to the security firm, the flaws can be exploited by attackers to achieve a complete Java VM security sandbox escape, as well as to execute an arbitrary code. The researchers
AliExpress WebSite Vulnerability Exposes Millions of Users' Private Information

AliExpress WebSite Vulnerability Exposes Millions of Users' Private Information

Dec 08, 2014
A critical, but easily exploitable personal information disclosure vulnerability has been discovered in the widely popular online marketplace AliExpress website that affects its millions of users worldwide. The reported vulnerability could allow anyone to steal personal information of hundreds of millions of AliExpress users without knowing their account passwords. AliExpress is an online marketplace owned by Chinese E-Commerce giant Alibaba.com , which offers more than 300 Million active users from more than 200 countries and regions to order items in bulk or one at a time at low wholesale prices. Amitay Dan , an Israeli application security researcher working at Cybermoon.cc, reported the vulnerability to The Hacker News after providing full disclosure of the flaw to the AliExpress team and Israeli media. According to the Proof-of-Concept video and screenshots provided by the security researcher to The Hacker News , AliExpress website allows logged in user to add
Yahoo Quickly Fixes SQL Injection Vulnerability Escalated to Remote Code Execution

Yahoo Quickly Fixes SQL Injection Vulnerability Escalated to Remote Code Execution

Sep 20, 2014
Yahoo! was recently impacted by a critical web application vulnerabilities which left website's database and server vulnerable to hackers. A cyber security expert and penetration tester, Ebrahim Hegazy a.k.a Zigoo from Egypt , has found a serious SQL injection vulnerability in Yahoo's website that allows an attacker to remotely execute any commands on its server with Root Privileges. According to Hegazy blog post , the SQLi vulnerability resides in a domain of Yahoo! website i.e. https://innovationjockeys.net/tictac_chk_req.php . Any remote user can manipulate the input to the " f_id " parameter in the above URL, which could be exploited to extract database from the server. While pentesting, he found username and password ( encoded as Base64 ) of Yahoo!' admin panel stored in the database. He decoded the Administrator Password and successfully Logged in to the Admin panel. Furthermore, SQL injection flaw also facilitate the attacker to exploit Remote Cod
Avira Vulnerability Puts Users' Online Backup Data At Risk

Avira Vulnerability Puts Users' Online Backup Data At Risk

Sep 20, 2014
A popular Anti-virus software Avira that provides free security software to its customers with Secure Backup service is vulnerable to a critical web application vulnerability that could allow an attacker to take over users' account, putting millions of its users' account at risk. Avira is very popular for their free security software that comes with its own real-time protection module against malware and a secure backup service. Avira was considered to be the sixth largest antivirus vendor in 2012 with over 100 million customers worldwide. A 16 year-old security researcher ' Mazen Gamal ' from Egypt told The Hacker News that Avira Website is vulnerable to CSRF (Cross-site request forgery) vulnerability that allows him to hijack users' accounts and access to their online secure cloud backup files. CSRF VULNERABILITY TO  ACCOUNT TAKEOVER Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF or XSRF) is a method of attacking a Web site in which an intruder masquerades as a legitimate
How to Detect SQL Injection Attacks

How to Detect SQL Injection Attacks

Sep 19, 2014
SQL Injection (SQLi) attacks have been around for over a decade. You might wonder why they are still so prevalent. The main reason is that they still work on quite a few web application targets. In fact, according to Veracode's 2014 State of Security Software Report , SQL injection vulnerabilities still plague 32% of all web applications. One of the big reasons is the attractiveness of the target – the database typically contains the interesting and valuable data for the web application. A SQLi attack involves inserting a malformed SQL query into an application via client-side input. The attack perverts the intentions of web programmers who write queries and provide input methods that can be exploited. There is a reason they're on the OWASP Top 10 . Termed " injection flaws ", they can strike not only SQL, but operating systems and LDAP can fall prey to SQLi. They involve sending untrusted data to the interpreter as a part of the query. The attack tricks the interpreter into
 Hacking Fiverr.com Accounts — Vulnerability Puts $50 Million Company At Risk

Hacking Fiverr.com Accounts — Vulnerability Puts $50 Million Company At Risk

Aug 16, 2014
Fiverr.com, a global online marketplace which provides a platform for people to sell their services for five dollars per job, is vulnerable to a critical web application vulnerability that puts its millions of users at risk. Fiverr recently raised $30 million in a third round of institutional funding to continue supporting the new version of its marketplace, but the company ignored the advance warning of the critical bug reported responsibly by a vulnerability hunter and fails to patch up their website before his public release. There are endless numbers of people providing services on Fiverr website, such as graphic design, language translation, illustration, blogging and a lot more that start from just $5 but can go much higher, depending on complexity, seller rating, and type of work. According to a security researcher Mohamed Abdelbaset, an Information Security Evangelist from Egypt, told The Hacker News that Fiverr website is vulnerable to CSRF (Cross-site reque
Flickr Cross-Site Request Forgery Vulnerability Patched

Flickr Cross-Site Request Forgery Vulnerability Patched

Aug 06, 2014
Yahoo-owned Flickr, one of the biggest online photo management and sharing website in the world was recently impacted by a web application vulnerability , which could allow an attacker to modify users' profile image. Flickr is one of the most popular photo sharing website with more than 87 million users, therefore some top major target for cybercriminals. The site was vulnerable to the most common vulnerability known as Cross-Site Request Forgery (XSRF or CSRF), which is very easy to exploit by attackers. Cross-Site Request Forgery is a method of attacking a Web site in which an intruder masquerades as a legitimate and trusted user. All the attacker need to do is get the target browser to make a request to your website on their behalf. If they can either: Convince your users to click on a HTML page they've constructed Insert arbitrary HTML in a target website that your users visit Not too difficult, is it? Abdullah Hussam , a 17 years old programmer from Iraq found that just
Jobvite Recruitment Service Website Vulnerable to Hackers

Jobvite Recruitment Service Website Vulnerable to Hackers

Aug 04, 2014
Jobvite , a recruiting platform for the social web, is found vulnerable to the most common, but critical web application vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to compromise and steal the database of the company's website. Jobvite is a Social recruiting and applicant tracking created for companies with the highest expectations of recruiting technology and candidate quality. Growing companies use Jobvite's social recruiting, sourcing and talent acquisition solutions to target the right talent and build the best teams. An independent security researcher Mohamed M. Fouad from Egypt, has found two major flaws in Jobvite website  that could be used by an attacker to comprise the company's web server. As a responsible security researcher, Fouad also reported the critical flaws three months ago to the Jobvite team, but the company didn't fix it till now. According to Fouad, Jobvite is vulnerable to Boolean SQLi (SQL injection) and LFI (local file inclusion) v
MediaWiki Remote Code Execution vulnerability leaves Wikipedia open for Cyber attacks

MediaWiki Remote Code Execution vulnerability leaves Wikipedia open for Cyber attacks

Jan 30, 2014
The Encyclopedia giant WIKIPEDIA has been found vulnerable to remote code execution because of a critical flaw in the MediaWiki software . Wikipedia is a name which has become a major source of information for all of us. It has webpages on almost every topic you need to search. This giant is powered by an open source wiki software called MediaWiki. MediaWiki not only empowers Wikipedia, but also a number of other wiki websites. This software is a product of the Wikimedia Foundation and is coded in PHP with a database as backend. Cyber Point Software Technologies found a remote code execution vulnerability in MediaWiki, " This vulnerability affects all versions of MediaWiki from 1.8 onwards. " The vulnerability assigned with ID CVE-2014-1610 allows an attacker to execute shell code remotely via an incorrectly sanitized parameter on the MediaWiki application server. "Shell meta characters can be passed in the page parameter to the thumb.php." Bug 60339
Yahoo fixes Critical Remote Command Execution vulnerability

Yahoo fixes Critical Remote Command Execution vulnerability

Jan 26, 2014
Cyber Security Expert and Penetration tester, Ebrahim Hegazy has found a serious vulnerability in Yahoo's website that allows an attacker to remotely execute any commands on the server i.e. Remote Command Execution vulnerability. According to Ebrahim blog post , the vulnerability resides in a Chinese subdomin of Yahoo website i.e. https://tw.user.mall.yahoo.com/rating/list?sid= $Vulnerability Any remote user can manipulate the input to the sid parameter in the above URL, that passes the parameter value to an eval() PHP function on the server end. If an attacker is able to inject a PHP code into this web application, it forces the server to execute it, but this method only limited by what PHP is capable of. In a POC Video he has successfully demonstrated few Payloads: Example-1: https://tw.user.mall.yahoo.com/rating/list?sid= ${@print(system("dir"))} Example-2: https://tw.user.mall.yahoo.com/rating/list?sid= ${@print(system("ps"))} Last week, He
Hacker demonstrated 'Remote Code Execution' vulnerability on EBay website

Hacker demonstrated 'Remote Code Execution' vulnerability on EBay website

Dec 13, 2013
A German Security researcher has demonstrated a critical  vulnerability on Ebay website, world's biggest eStore. According to David Vieira-Kurz  discovered Remote code execution flaw " due to a type-cast issue in combination with complex curly syntax ", that allows an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the EBay's web server. In a demo video, he exploited this RCE flaw on EBay website, and managed to display output of phpinfo()  PHP function on the web page, just by modifying the URL and injecting code in that. According to an explanation on his blog , he noticed a legitimate URL on EBay: https://sea.ebay.com/search/?q=david&catidd=1  . . and modified the URL to pass any array values including a payload: https://sea.ebay.com/search/?q[0]=david&q[1]=sec{${ phpinfo() }}&catidd=1 Video Demonstration: But it is not clear at this moment that where the flaw resides on Ebay server, because how a static GET parameter can be converted to accept like an array
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