code signing | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

ConnectWise has disclosed that it's planning to rotate the digital code signing certificates used to sign ScreenConnect, ConnectWise Automate, and ConnectWise remote monitoring and management (RMM) executables due to security concerns. The company said it's doing so "due to concerns raised by a third-party researcher about how ScreenConnect handled certain configuration data in earlier versions." While the company did not publicly elaborate on the nature of the problem, it has shed more light in a non-public FAQ accessible only to its customers (and later shared on Reddit ) - The concern stems from ScreenConnect using the ability to store configuration data in an available area of the installer that is not signed but is part of the installer. We are using this ability to pass down configuration information for the connection (between the agent and server) such as the URL where the agent should call back without invalidating the signature. The unsigned area is u...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a new malware campaign that delivers Hijack Loader artifacts that are signed with legitimate code-signing certificates. French cybersecurity company HarfangLab, which detected the activity at the start of the month, said the attack chains aim to deploy an information stealer known as Lumma. Hijack Loader , also known as DOILoader, IDAT Loader, and SHADOWLADDER, first came to light in September 2023. Attack chains involving the malware loader typically involve tricking users into downloading a booby-trapped binary under the guise of pirated software or movies. Recent variations of these campaigns have been found to direct users to fake CAPTCHA pages that urge site visitors to prove they are human by copying and running an encoded PowerShell command that drops the malicious payload in the form of a ZIP archive. HarfangLab said it observed three different versions of the PowerShell script starting mid-September 2024 - A PowerShell script ...

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on an adware module that purports to block ads and malicious websites, while stealthily offloading a kernel driver component that grants attackers the ability to run arbitrary code with elevated permissions on Windows hosts. The malware, dubbed HotPage, gets its name from the eponymous installer ("HotPage.exe"), according to new findings from ESET, which discovered the malware towards the end of 2023. The installer "deploys a driver capable of injecting code into remote processes, and two libraries capable of intercepting and tampering with browsers' network traffic," ESET researcher Romain Dumont said in a technical analysis published today. "The malware can modify or replace the contents of a requested page, redirect the user to another page, or open a new page in a new tab based on certain conditions." Besides leveraging its browser traffic interception and filtering capabilities to display game-relat...

I had the honor of hosting the first episode of the Xposure Podcast live from Xposure Summit 2025. And I couldn't have asked for a better kickoff panel: three cybersecurity leaders who don't just talk security, they live it. Let me introduce them. Alex Delay , CISO at IDB Bank, knows what it means to defend a highly regulated environment. Ben Mead , Director of Cybersecurity at Avidity Biosciences, brings a forward-thinking security perspective that reflects the innovation behind Avidity's targeted RNA therapeutics. Last but not least, Michael Francess , Director of Cybersecurity Advanced Threat at Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, leads the charge in protecting the franchise. Each brought a unique vantage point to a common challenge: applying Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) to complex production environments. Gartner made waves in 2023 with a bold prediction: organizations that prioritize CTEM will be three times less likely to be breached by 2026. But here's the kicker -...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a novel technique adopted by a threat actor to deliberately evade detection with the help of malformed digital signatures of its malware payloads. "Attackers created malformed code signatures that are treated as valid by Windows but are not able to be decoded or checked by OpenSSL code — which is used in a number of security scanning products," Google Threat Analysis Group's Neel Mehta  said  in a write-up published on Thursday. The new mechanism was observed to be exploited by a notorious family of unwanted software known as  OpenSUpdater  that's used to download and install other suspicious programs on compromised systems. Most targets of the campaign are users located in the U.S. who are prone to downloading cracked versions of games and other grey-area software. The findings come from a set of OpenSUpdater  samples   uploaded  to VirusTotal at least since mid-August. While adversaries in the past ...

A years-old vulnerability has been discovered in the way several security products for Mac implement Apple's code-signing API that could make it easier for malicious programs to bypass the security check, potentially leaving millions of Apple users vulnerable to hackers. Josh Pitts, a researcher from security firm Okta, discovered that several third-party security products for Mac—including Little Snitch, F-Secure xFence, VirusTotal, Google Santa, and Facebook OSQuery—could be tricked into believing that an unsigned malicious code is signed by Apple. Code-signing mechanism is a vital weapon in the fight against malware, which helps users identify who has signed the app and also provides reasonable proof that it has not been altered. However, Pitts found that the mechanism used by most products to check digital signatures is trivial to bypass, allowing malicious files bundle with a legitimate Apple-signed code to effectively make the malware look like it has been signed by...