Windows | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A newly devised technique leverages a Windows accessibility framework called UI Automation (UIA) to perform a wide range of malicious activities without tipping off endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions. "To exploit this technique, a user must be convinced to run a program that uses UI Automation," Akamai security researcher Tomer Peled said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "This can lead to stealthy command execution, which can harvest sensitive data, redirect browsers to phishing websites, and more." Even worse, local attackers could take advantage of this security blindspot to execute commands and read/write messages from/to messaging applications like Slack and WhatsApp. On top of that, it could also be potentially weaponized to manipulate UI elements over a network. First available in Windows XP as part of the Microsoft .NET Framework, UI Automation is designed to provide programmatic access to various user interface (UI) elements and h...

Microsoft closed out its Patch Tuesday updates for 2024 with fixes for a total of 72 security flaws spanning its software portfolio, including one that it said has been exploited in the wild. Of the 72 flaws, 17 are rated Critical, 54 are rated Important, and one is rated Moderate in severity. Thirty-one of the vulnerabilities are remote code execution flaws, and 27 of them allow for the elevation of privileges. This is in addition to 13 vulnerabilities the company has addressed in its Chromium-based Edge browser since the release of last month's security update . In total, Microsoft has resolved as many as 1,088 vulnerabilities in 2024 alone, per Fortra. The vulnerability that Microsoft has acknowledged as having been actively exploited is CVE-2024-49138 (CVSS score: 7.8), a privilege escalation flaw in the Windows Common Log File System (CLFS) Driver. "An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain SYSTEM privileges," the company said in an...

CrowdStrike is named a Leader in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Endpoint Protection Platforms for the fifth consecutive time, positioned highest on Ability to Execute and furthest to the right on Completeness of Vision.

Cybersecurity researchers have warned of a new scam campaign that leverages fake video conferencing apps to deliver an information stealer called Realst targeting people working in Web3 under the guise of fake business meetings. "The threat actors behind the malware have set up fake companies using AI to make them increase legitimacy," Cado Security researcher Tara Gould said . "The company reaches out to targets to set up a video call, prompting the user to download the meeting application from the website, which is Realst infostealer." The activity has been codenamed Meeten by the security company, owing to the use of names such as Clusee, Cuesee, Meeten, Meetone, and Meetio for the bogus sites. The attacks entail approaching prospective targets on Telegram to discuss a potential investment opportunity, urging them to join a video call hosted on one of the dubious platforms. Users who end up on the site are prompted to download a Windows or macOS version dep...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a set of flaws impacting Palo Alto Networks and SonicWall virtual private network (VPN) clients that could be potentially exploited to gain remote code execution on Windows and macOS systems. "By targeting the implicit trust VPN clients place in servers, attackers can manipulate client behaviours, execute arbitrary commands, and gain high levels of access with minimal effort," AmberWolf said in an analysis. In a hypothetical attack scenario, this plays out in the form of a rogue VPN server that can trick the clients into downloading malicious updates that can cause unintended consequences. The result of the investigation is a proof-of-concept (PoC) attack tool called NachoVPN that can simulate such VPN servers and exploit the vulnerabilities to achieve privileged code execution. The identified flaws are listed below - CVE-2024-5921 (CVSS score: 5.6) - An insufficient certificate validation vulnerability impacting Palo Alto N...

A newly patched security flaw impacting Windows NT LAN Manager (NTLM) was exploited as a zero-day by a suspected Russia-linked actor as part of cyber attacks targeting Ukraine. The vulnerability in question, CVE-2024-43451 (CVSS score: 6.5), refers to an NTLM hash disclosure spoofing vulnerability that could be exploited to steal a user's NTLMv2 hash. It was patched by Microsoft earlier this week. "Minimal interaction with a malicious file by a user such as selecting (single-click), inspecting (right-click), or performing an action other than opening or executing could trigger this vulnerability," Microsoft revealed in its advisory. Israeli cybersecurity company ClearSky, which discovered the zero-day exploitation of the flaw in June 2024, said it's been abused as part of an attack chain that delivers the open-source Spark RAT malware. "The vulnerability activates URL files, leading to malicious activity," the company said, adding the malicious file...

Microsoft on Tuesday revealed that two security flaws impacting Windows NT LAN Manager ( NTLM ) and Task Scheduler have come under active exploitation in the wild. The security vulnerabilities are among the 90 security bugs the tech giant addressed as part of its Patch Tuesday update for November 2024. Of the 90 flaws, four are rated Critical, 85 are rated Important, and one is rated Moderate in severity. Fifty-two of the patched vulnerabilities are remote code execution flaws. The fixes are in addition to 31 vulnerabilities Microsoft resolved in its Chromium-based Edge browser since the release of the October 2024 Patch Tuesday update. The two vulnerabilities that have been listed as actively exploited are below - CVE-2024-43451 (CVSS score: 6.5) - Windows NTLM Hash Disclosure Spoofing Vulnerability CVE-2024-49039 (CVSS score: 8.8) - Windows Task Scheduler Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability "This vulnerability discloses a user's NTLMv2 hash to the attacker who c...

Cybersecurity researchers have unpacked the inner workings of a new ransomware variant called Cicada3301 that shares similarities with the now-defunct BlackCat (aka ALPHV) operation. "It appears that Cicada3301 ransomware primarily targets small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), likely through opportunistic attacks that exploit vulnerabilities as the initial access vector," cybersecurity company Morphisec said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. Written in Rust and capable of targeting both Windows and Linux/ESXi hosts, Cicada3301 first emerged in June 2024, inviting potential affiliates to join their ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) platform via an advertisement on the RAMP underground forum. A notable aspect of the ransomware is that the executable embeds the compromised user's credentials, which are then used to run PsExec , a legitimate tool that makes it possible to run programs remotely. Cicada3301's similarities with BlackCat also extend t...

The Chinese state-sponsored group known as  UNC3886  has been found to exploit a zero-day flaw in VMware ESXi hosts to backdoor Windows and Linux systems. The VMware Tools authentication bypass vulnerability, tracked as  CVE-2023-20867  (CVSS score: 3.9), "enabled the execution of privileged commands across Windows, Linux, and PhotonOS (vCenter) guest VMs without authentication of guest credentials from a compromised ESXi host and no default logging on guest VMs," Mandiant  said . UNC3886 was  initially documented  by the Google-owned threat intelligence firm in September 2022 as a cyber espionage actor infecting VMware ESXi and vCenter servers with backdoors named VIRTUALPITA and VIRTUALPIE. Earlier this March, the group was  linked  to the exploitation of a now-patched medium-severity security flaw in the Fortinet FortiOS operating system to deploy implants on the network appliances and interact with the aforementioned malware. The th...

Details have emerged about a now-patched actively exploited security flaw in Microsoft Windows that could be abused by a threat actor to gain elevated privileges on affected systems. The vulnerability, tracked as  CVE-2023-29336 , is rated 7.8 for severity and concerns an elevation of privilege bug in the Win32k component. "An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain SYSTEM privileges," Microsoft  disclosed  in an advisory issued last month as part of Patch Tuesday updates. Avast researchers Jan Vojtěšek, Milánek, and Luigino Camastra were credited with discovering and reporting the flaw. Win32k.sys is a kernel-mode driver and an integral part of the Windows architecture, being responsible for graphical device interface (GUI) and window management. While the exact specifics surrounding in-the-wild abuse of the flaw is presently not known, Numen Cyber has deconstructed the patch released by Microsoft to craft a proof-of-concept ( PoC ) expl...

Enterprise communications service provider 3CX confirmed that the  supply chain attack  targeting its desktop application for Windows and macOS was the handiwork of a threat actor with North Korean nexus. The findings are the result of an interim assessment conducted by Google-owned Mandiant, whose services were enlisted after the intrusion came to light late last month. The threat intelligence and incident response unit is tracking the activity under its uncategorized moniker  UNC4736 . It's worth noting that CrowdStrike has tied the attack to a Lazarus sub-group dubbed Labyrinth Chollima , citing tactical overlaps. The cybersecurity firm told The Hacker News the latest findings appear to be consistent with their previous attribution. The  attack chain , based on analyses from multiple security vendors, entailed the use of DLL side-loading techniques to load an information stealer known as ICONIC Stealer, followed by a second-stage called  Gopuram  in...

A Chinese state-sponsored threat activity group tracked as  RedGolf  has been  attributed  to the use of a custom Windows and Linux backdoor called KEYPLUG. "RedGolf is a particularly prolific Chinese state-sponsored threat actor group that has likely been active for many years against a wide range of industries globally," Recorded Future told The Hacker News. "The group has shown the ability to rapidly weaponize  newly reported vulnerabilities (e.g. Log4Shell and  ProxyLogon ) and has a history of developing and using a large range of custom malware families." The use of KEYPLUG by Chinese threat actors was  first disclosed  by Google-owned Mandiant in March 2022 in attacks targeting multiple U.S. state government networks between May 2021 and February 2022. Then in October 2022, Malwarebytes  detailed  a separate set of attacks targeting government entities in Sri Lanka in early August that leveraged a novel implant dubbed DBox...

Researchers have shed light on a new hybrid malware campaign targeting both Android and Windows operating systems in a bid to expand its pool of victims. The attacks entail the use of different malware such as  ERMAC ,  Erbium ,  Aurora , and  Laplas , according to a  ThreatFabric report  shared with The Hacker News. "This campaign resulted in thousands of victims," the Dutch cybersecurity company said, adding, "Erbium stealer successfully exfiltrated data from more then 1,300 victims." The ERMAC infections commence with a fraudulent website that claims to offer Wi-Fi authorization software for Android and Windows that, when installed, comes with features to steal seed phrases from crypto wallets and other sensitive data. ThreatFabric said it also found a number of malicious apps that were trojanized versions of legitimate apps like Instagram, with the operators using them as droppers to deliver the obfuscated malicious payload. The rogue apps, dubb...

The operators of the RansomExx ransomware have become the latest to develop a new variant fully rewritten in the Rust programming language, following other strains like  BlackCat ,  Hive , and  Luna . The latest version, dubbed RansomExx2 by the threat actor known as Hive0091 (aka DefrayX), is primarily designed to run on the Linux operating system, although it's expected that a Windows version will be released in the future. RansomExx, also known as Defray777 and Ransom X, is a  ransomware   family  that's known to be active since 2018. It has since been linked to a number of attacks on government agencies, manufacturers, and other high-profile entities like Embraer and GIGABYTE. "Malware written in Rust often benefits from lower [antivirus] detection rates (compared to those written in more common languages) and this may have been the primary reason to use the language," IBM Security X-Force researcher Charlotte Hammond  said  in a report p...

Details have emerged about a previously undocumented and fully undetectable (FUD) PowerShell backdoor that gains its stealth by disguising itself as part of a Windows update process. "The covert self-developed tool and the associated C2 commands seem to be the work of a sophisticated, unknown threat actor who has targeted approximately 100 victims," Tomer Bar, director of security research at SafeBreach,  said  in a new report. Attributed to an  unnamed threat actor , attack chains involving the malware commence with a weaponized  Microsoft Word document  that, per the company, was uploaded from Jordan on August 25, 2022. Metadata associated with the lure document indicates that the initial intrusion vector is a LinkedIn-based spear-phishing attack, which ultimately leads to the execution of a PowerShell script via a piece of embedded macro code. "The Macro drops 'updater.vbs,' creates a scheduled task pretending to be part of a Windows update, which will ...