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An "intricately designed" remote access trojan (RAT) called  Xeno RAT  has been made available on GitHub, making it easily accessible to other actors at no extra cost. Written in C# and compatible with Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems, the open-source RAT comes with a "comprehensive set of features for remote system management," according to its developer, who goes by the name moom825. It includes a SOCKS5 reverse proxy and the ability to record real-time audio, as well as incorporate a hidden virtual network computing ( hVNC ) module along the lines of  DarkVNC , which allows attackers to gain remote access to an infected computer. "Xeno RAT is developed entirely from scratch, ensuring a unique and tailored approach to remote access tools," the developer  states  in the project description. Another notable aspect is that it has a builder that enables the creation of bespoke variants of the malware.  It's worth noting that moom825 is a

Microsoft said it's introducing Sudo for Windows 11 as part of an early preview version to help users execute commands with administrator privileges. "Sudo for Windows is a new way for users to run elevated commands directly from an unelevated console session," Microsoft Product Manager Jordi Adoumie  said . "It is an ergonomic and familiar solution for users who want to elevate a command without having to first open a new elevated console." Sudo, short for superuser do, is a  program  for  Unix-like computer operating systems  that allows users to run programs with the security privileges of another user, usually a user with elevated permissions (e.g., administrator). The feature is available for Windows 11 builds 26045 and later. It can be enabled by heading to Settings > System > For Developers, and setting "Enable sudo" to On. Sudo for Windows comes with three options: run applications in a new elevated console window, run the elevated

Identities now transcend human boundaries. Within each line of code and every API call lies a non-human identity. These entities act as programmatic access keys, enabling authentication and facilitating interactions among systems and services, which are essential for every API call, database query, or storage account access. As we depend on multi-factor authentication and passwords to safeguard human identities, a pressing question arises: How do we guarantee the security and integrity of these non-human counterparts? How do we authenticate, authorize, and regulate access for entities devoid of life but crucial for the functioning of critical systems? Let's break it down. The challenge Imagine a cloud-native application as a bustling metropolis of tiny neighborhoods known as microservices, all neatly packed into containers. These microservices function akin to diligent worker bees, each diligently performing its designated task, be it processing data, verifying credentials, or

A now-patched security flaw in Microsoft Outlook could be exploited by threat actors to access NT LAN Manager (NTLM) v2 hashed passwords when opening a specially crafted file. The issue, tracked as CVE-2023-35636 (CVSS score: 6.5), was addressed by the tech giant as part of its  Patch Tuesday updates  for December 2023. "In an email attack scenario, an attacker could exploit the vulnerability by sending the specially crafted file to the user and convincing the user to open the file," Microsoft  said  in an advisory released last month. "In a web-based attack scenario, an attacker could host a website (or leverage a compromised website that accepts or hosts user-provided content) containing a specially crafted file designed to exploit the vulnerability." Put differently, the adversary would have to convince users to click a link, either embedded in a phishing email or sent via an instant message, and then deceive them into opening the file in question. CVE-202

Microsoft has announced that it  plans  to eliminate NT LAN Manager ( NTLM ) in Windows 11 in the future, as it pivots to alternative methods for authentication and bolster security. "The focus is on strengthening the Kerberos authentication protocol, which has been the default since 2000, and reducing reliance on NT LAN Manager (NTLM)," the tech giant said. "New features for Windows 11 include Initial and Pass Through Authentication Using Kerberos (IAKerb) and a local Key Distribution Center ( KDC ) for Kerberos." IAKerb enables clients to authenticate with Kerberos across a diverse range of network topologies. The second feature, a local Key Distribution Center (KDC) for Kerberos, extends Kerberos support to local accounts. First introduced in the 1990s, NTLM is a  suite of security protocols  intended to provide authentication, integrity, and confidentiality to users. It is a single sign-on (SSO) tool that relies on a challenge-response protocol that proves

A stealthy Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) bootkit called BlackLotus has become the first publicly known malware capable of bypassing Secure Boot defenses, making it a potent threat in the cyber landscape. "This bootkit can run even on fully up-to-date Windows 11 systems with UEFI Secure Boot enabled," Slovak cybersecurity company ESET  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. UEFI bootkits  are deployed in the FAT32 system partition and allow full control over the operating system (OS) boot process, thereby making it possible to disable OS-level security mechanisms and deploy arbitrary payloads during startup with high privileges. Offered for sale at $5,000 (and $200 per new subsequent version), the powerful and persistent toolkit is programmed in Assembly and C and is 80 kilobytes in size. It also features geofencing capabilities to avoid infecting computers in Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine. Details about Black

Microsoft is now taking steps to prevent Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) brute-force attacks as part of the latest builds for the Windows 11 operating system in an attempt to raise the  security baseline  to meet the evolving threat landscape. To that end, the default policy for Windows 11 builds – particularly, Insider Preview builds 22528.1000 and newer – will automatically lock accounts for 10 minutes after 10 invalid sign-in attempts. "Win11 builds now have a DEFAULT account lockout policy to mitigate RDP and other brute-force password vectors," David Weston, Microsoft's vice president for OS security and enterprise,  said  in a series of tweets last week. "This technique is very commonly used in Human Operated Ransomware and other attacks -- this control will make brute forcing much harder which is awesome!" It's worth pointing out that while this  account lockout setting  is already incorporated in Windows 10, it's not enabled by default. The f

Fraudulent domains masquerading as Microsoft's Windows 11 download portal are attempting to trick users into deploying trojanized installation files to infect systems with the Vidar information stealer malware. "The spoofed sites were created to distribute malicious ISO files which lead to a Vidar info-stealer infection on the endpoint," Zscaler  said  in a report. "These variants of Vidar malware fetch the C2 configuration from attacker-controlled social media channels hosted on Telegram and Mastodon network." Some of the rogue distribution vector domains, which were registered last month on April 20, consist of ms-win11[.]com, win11-serv[.]com, and win11install[.]com, and ms-teams-app[.]net. In addition, the cybersecurity firm cautioned that the threat actor behind the impersonation campaign is also leveraging backdoored versions of Adobe Photoshop and other legitimate software such as Microsoft Teams to deliver Vidar malware. The ISO file, for its part,

Microsoft Windows 10 and Windows 11 users are at risk of a new unpatched vulnerability that was recently disclosed publicly. As we reported last week, the vulnerability — SeriousSAM — allows attackers with low-level permissions to access Windows system files to perform a Pass-the-Hash (and potentially Silver Ticket) attack.  Attackers can exploit this vulnerability to obtain hashed passwords stored in the Security Account Manager (SAM) and Registry, and ultimately run arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges. SeriousSAM vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2021-36934 , exists in the default configuration of Windows 10 and Windows 11, specifically due to a setting that allows 'read' permissions to the built-in user's group that contains all local users. As a result, built-in local users have access to read the SAM files and the Registry, where they can also view the hashes. Once the attacker has 'User' access, they can use a tool such as Mimikatz to gain access to the Re

Microsoft's Windows 10 and the upcoming Windows 11 versions have been found vulnerable to a new local privilege escalation vulnerability that permits users with low-level permissions access Windows system files, in turn, enabling them to unmask the operating system installation password and even decrypt private keys. The vulnerability has been nicknamed "SeriousSAM." "Starting with Windows 10 build 1809, non-administrative users are granted access to SAM, SYSTEM, and SECURITY registry hive files," CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) said in a  vulnerability note  published Monday. "This can allow for local privilege escalation (LPE)." The operating system configuration files in question are as follows - c:\Windows\System32\config\sam c:\Windows\System32\config\system c:\Windows\System32\config\security Microsoft, which is tracking the vulnerability under the identifier  CVE-2021-36934 , acknowledged the issue, but has yet to roll out a patch, o