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Apps on Android have been able to infer the presence of specific apps, or even collect the full list of installed apps on the device. What's more, an app can also set to be notified when a new app is installed. Apart from all the usual concerns about misuse of such a data grab, the information can be abused by a potentially harmful app to fingerprint other installed apps, check for the  presence of antivirus ,  affiliate fraud , and even for targeted ads.  In 2014, Twitter  began  tracking the list of apps installed on users' devices as part of its "app graph" initiative with an aim to deliver tailored content. Digital wallet company MobiKwik was also caught  collecting information  about installed apps in the wake of a data breach that came to light earlier this week. Indeed, a study undertaken by a group of Swiss researchers in 2019  found  that "free apps are more likely to query for such information and that third-party libraries (libs) are the main requ

A 22-year-old man from the U.S. state of Kansas has been indicted on charges that he unauthorizedly accessed a public water facility's computer system, jeopardizing the residents' safety and health in the local community. Wyatt A. Travnichek, 22, of Ellsworth County, Kansas, has been charged with one count of tampering with a public water system and one count of reckless damage to a protected computer during unauthorized access, according to the Department of Justice (DoJ). "By illegally tampering with a public drinking water system, the defendant threatened the safety and health of an entire community,"  said  Lance Ehrig, Special Agent in Charge of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Criminal Investigation Division in Kansas. "EPA and its law enforcement partners are committed to upholding the laws designed to protect our drinking water systems from harm or threat of harm. Today's indictment sends a clear message that individuals who intentionall

Over the past two years, a shocking  51% of organizations surveyed in a leading industry report have been compromised by a cyberattack.  Yes, over half.  And this, in a world where enterprises deploy  an average of 53 different security solutions  to safeguard their digital domain.  Alarming? Absolutely. A recent survey of CISOs and CIOs, commissioned by Pentera and conducted by Global Surveyz Research, offers a quantifiable glimpse into this evolving battlefield, revealing a stark contrast between the growing risks and the tightening budget constraints under which cybersecurity professionals operate. With this report, Pentera has once again taken a magnifying glass to the state of pentesting to release its annual report about today's pentesting practices. Engaging with 450 security executives from North America, LATAM, APAC, and EMEA—all in VP or C-level positions at organizations with over 1,000 employees—the report paints a current picture of modern security validation prac

A novel technique adopted by attackers finds ways to use Microsoft's Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) so as to deploy malicious payloads on Windows machines stealthily. In 2020, hospitals, retirement communities, and medical centers bore the brunt of an  ever-shifting phishing campaign  that distributed custom backdoors such as KEGTAP, which ultimately paved the way for RYUK ransomware attacks. But new  research  by FireEye's Mandiant cyber forensics arm has now revealed a previously unknown persistence mechanism that shows the adversaries made use of BITS to launch the backdoor. Introduced in Windows XP,  BITS  is a component of Microsoft Windows, which makes use of idle network bandwidth to facilitate the asynchronous transfer of files between machines. This is achieved by creating a job — a container that includes the files to download or upload. BITS is commonly used to deliver operating system updates to clients as well as by Windows Defender antivirus

You're fully aware of the need to stop threats at the front door and then hunt any that got through that first gate, so your company installed an EPP/ EDR solution. But like most companies, you've already come across its shortcoming – and these are amplified since you have a small security team. More than likely, you noticed that it has its share of detection blind spots and limitations for which you need to tack on more detection technologies.  Remediation requires manual effort, and in terms of operation, it's become too much of an investment on your already resource-constrained staff. Deployment took you ages, so you're somewhat wary of introducing new technology and going through that process again.  What should you do – fight for more resources, flight from the EDR/ EPP combo to other technological solutions, or freeze by accepting this painful situation and updating the board that your risk levels remain high?  When fight and freeze are typically the directio

Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday disclosed details of a sophisticated campaign that deploys malicious backdoors for the purpose of exfiltrating information from a number of industry sectors located in Japan. Dubbed "A41APT" by Kaspersky researchers, the findings delve into a new slew of attacks undertaken by  APT10  (aka Stone Panda or Cicada) using previously undocumented malware to deliver as many as three payloads such as SodaMaster, P8RAT, and FYAnti. The long-running intelligence-gathering operation first came into the scene in March 2019, with activities spotted as recently as November 2020, when  reports  emerged of Japan-linked companies being targeted by the threat actor in over 17 regions worldwide. The fresh attacks uncovered by Kaspersky are said to have occurred in January 2021. The infection chain leverages a multi-stage attack process, with the initial intrusion happening via abuse of SSL-VPN by exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities or stolen credential

Researchers have discovered a new information-stealing trojan, which targets Android devices with an onslaught of data-exfiltration capabilities — from collecting browser searches to recording audio and phone calls. While malware on Android has previously taken the guise of copycat apps, which go under names similar to legitimate pieces of software, this sophisticated new malicious app masquerades itself as a System Update application to take control of compromised devices. "The spyware creates a notification if the device's screen is off when it receives a command using the Firebase messaging service," Zimperium researchers  said  in a Friday analysis. "The 'Searching for update..' is not a legitimate notification from the operating system, but the spyware." Once installed, the sophisticated spyware campaign sets about its task by registering the device with a Firebase command-and-control (C2) server with information such as battery percentage, sto

Facebook may be banned in China, but the company on Wednesday said it has disrupted a network of bad actors using its platform to target the Uyghur community and lure them into downloading malicious software that would allow surveillance of their devices. "They targeted activists, journalists and dissidents predominantly among Uyghurs from Xinjiang in China primarily living abroad in Turkey, Kazakhstan, the United States, Syria, Australia, Canada and other countries," Facebook's Head of Cyber Espionage Investigations, Mike Dvilyanski, and Head of Security Policy, Nathaniel Gleicher,  said . "This group used various cyber espionage tactics to identify its targets and infect their devices with malware to enable surveillance." The social media giant said the "well-resourced and persistent operation" aligned with a threat actor known as  Evil Eye  (or Earth Empusa), a China-based collective known for its history of espionage attacks against the Muslim m

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has warned of critical security shortcomings in GE's Universal Relay (UR) family of power management devices. "Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to access sensitive information, reboot the UR, gain privileged access, or cause a denial-of-service condition," the agency said in an advisory published on March 16. GE's universal relays enable  integrated monitoring and metering, high-speed communications, and offer simplified power management for the protection of critical assets. The flaws, which affect a number of UR advanced protection and control relays, including B30, B90, C30, C60, C70, C95, D30, D60, F35, F60, G30, G60, L30, L60, L90, M60, N60, T35 and T60, were addressed by GE with the release of an updated version of the UR firmware (version 8.10) made available on December 24, 2020. The patches resolve a total of nine vulnerabilities, the most importan

Are you looking to becoming a malware analyst? Then continue reading to discover how to gain the training you need and start a career in malware analysis career. Did you know that new malware is released every seven seconds? As more and more systems become reliant on the internet, the proliferation of malware becomes increasingly destructive. Once upon a time, a computer virus might cause considerable inconvenience, but its reach might have been limited to the handful of systems connected to the internet. Today, with every home, factory, and institution online, it's theoretically possible for malware to shut down an entire nation. That's where malware analysis comes in. Malware analysis is the process of isolating and reverse-engineering malicious software. Malware analysts draw on a wide range of skills, from programming to digital forensics, to identify and understand different types of malware. From there, they can design security solutions to protect computers from sim

When a user account becomes locked out, the cause is often attributed to a user who has simply entered an old or incorrect password too many times. However, this is far from being the only thing that can cause an account to become locked. Another common cause, for example, is an application or script that is configured to log into the system using an old password. Perhaps the most easily overlooked cause of account lockouts, however, is the use of cached credentials. Before I explain  why cached credentials can be problematic , let's first consider what the Windows cached credentials do and why they are necessary. Cached and stored credentials Cached credentials are a mechanism that is used to ensure that users have a way of logging into their device in the event that the device is unable to access the Active Directory. Suppose for a moment that a user is working from a domain-joined laptop and is connected to the corporate network. In that type of situation, the Active Directory

Researchers have disclosed vulnerabilities in multiple WordPress plugins that, if successfully exploited, could allow an attacker to run arbitrary code and take over a website in certain scenarios. The flaws were uncovered in  Elementor , a website builder plugin used on more than seven million sites, and  WP Super Cache , a tool used to serve cached pages of a WordPress site. According to Wordfence, which discovered the security weaknesses in Elementor, the bug concerns a set of  stored cross-site scripting  (XSS) vulnerabilities (CVSS score: 6.4), which occurs when a malicious script is injected directly into a vulnerable web application. In this case, due to a lack of validation of the HTML tags on the server-side, a bad actor can exploit the issues to add executable JavaScript to a post or page via a crafted request. "Since posts created by contributors are typically reviewed by editors or administrators before publishing, any JavaScript added to one of these posts would

Email security firm Mimecast on Tuesday revealed that the state-sponsored SolarWinds hackers who broke into its internal network also downloaded source code out of a limited number of repositories. "The threat actor did access a subset of email addresses and other contact information and hashed and salted credentials," the company  said  in a write-up detailing its investigation, adding the adversary "accessed and downloaded a limited number of our source code repositories, as the threat actor is reported to have done with other victims of the SolarWinds Orion supply chain attack." But Mimecast said the source code downloaded by the attackers was incomplete and would be insufficient to build and run any aspect of the Mimecast service and that it did not find signs of any tampering made by the threat actor to the build process associated with the executables that are distributed to its customers.  On January 12, Mimecast  disclosed  that "a sophisticated th

It's not every day that one of the best-known independent cybersecurity individuals joins a cybersecurity company. The two are generally on opposite sides of the coin, with little crossover. After all, they're usually concerned with different parts of the cybersecurity puzzle – one providing platforms and tools to defend organizations, the other keeping them accountable and looking for blind spots in even the best security tools. That seems to be changing, however, with a recent appointment. Cynet, an Autonomous XDR provider that recently closed a Series C funding round worth $40 million, announced that it has hired Chris Roberts as their Chief Security Strategist. Roberts is world-renowned in counter-threat intelligence, as well as in vulnerability and threat research fields, thanks to decades of experience. As part of his efforts at Cynet, Roberts will be focusing his work on helping empower and connect security professionals from organizations outside of the Fortune 200

Cybersecurity researchers on Wednesday shed light on a new sophisticated backdoor targeting Linux endpoints and servers that's believed to be the work of Chinese nation-state actors. Dubbed " RedXOR " by Intezer, the backdoor masquerades as a polkit daemon, with similarities found between the malware and those previously associated with the  Winnti Umbrella  (or Axiom) threat group such as ​PWNLNX, ​XOR.DDOS​ and Groundhog. RedXOR's name comes from the fact that it encodes its network data with a scheme based on XOR, and that it's compiled with a legacy  GCC compiler  on an old release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, suggesting that the malware is deployed in targeted attacks against legacy Linux systems. Intezer said  two   samples  of the malware were uploaded from Indonesia and Taiwan around Feb. 23-24, both countries that are known to be singled out by China-based threat groups. Aside from the overlaps in terms of the overall flow and functionalities and th

As cloud computing continues to grow, Google Cloud is quickly becoming one of the most popular solutions.  However, relatively few engineers know this platform well. This leaves the door open for aspiring IT professionals who take the official exams. The Google Cloud Certifications Practice Tests + Courses Bundle  helps you get certified faster, with 43 hours of video content and over 1,000 practice questions. It covers seven Google exams, providing all the prep you could possibly need. You would normally expect to pay $639 for this training, but 'The Hacker News' has put together an eye-catching deal with Whizlabs Learning Center. Special Offer  —  For a limited time, you can  pick up all the content mentioned above for just $29.99  with this bundle. That means you save over $600 on the full price! As the demand for cloud computing experts grows, salaries are increasing. According to Glassdoor, engineers earn $117,785 a year on average. This bundle helps you join

Enterprise cloud security firm Qualys has become the latest victim to join a long list of entities to have suffered a data breach after zero-day vulnerabilities in its Accellion File Transfer Appliance (FTA) server were exploited to steal sensitive business documents. As proof of access to the data, the cybercriminals behind the recent hacks targeting Accellion FTA servers have shared screenshots of files belonging to the company's customers on a publicly accessible data leak website operated by the CLOP ransomware gang. Confirming the incident, Qualys Chief Information Security Officer Ben Carr  said  a detailed probe "identified unauthorized access to files hosted on the Accellion FTA server" located in a DMZ (aka  demilitarized zone ) environment that's segregated from the rest of the internal network. "Based on this investigation, we immediately notified the limited number of customers impacted by this unauthorized access," Carr added. "The in

Let's first take a look back at 2020! Adding to the list of difficulties that surfaced last year, 2020 was also grim for personal data protection, as it has marked a new record number of leaked credentials and PI data. A whopping 20 billion records were stolen in a single year, increasing 66% from 12 billion in 2019. Incredibly, this is a 9x increase from the comparatively "small" amount of 2.3 billion records stolen in 2018. This trend seems to fit an exponential curve; even worse, we are yet to see the fallouts from the end of the year "Solorigate" campaign, which has the potential to marginalize even these numbers by the end of 2021. Found among the leaked data are usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, bank account details, healthcare information, and other personal data. Malicious actors utilize these treasure troves of information for fraud and further attacks. In just the first quarter of 2020, the Dutch government managed to lose a hard drive

A full-time mass work from home (WFH) workforce was once considered an extreme risk scenario that few risk or security professionals even bothered to think about. Unfortunately, within a single day, businesses worldwide had to face such a reality. Their 3-year long digital transformation strategy was forced to become a 3-week sprint during which offices were abandoned, and people started working from home. Like in an eerie doomsday movie, servers were left on in the office, but nobody was sitting in the chairs. While everyone hopes that the world returns to its previous state, it's evident that work dynamics have changed forever. From now on, we can assume a hybrid work environment. Even companies that will require their employees to arrive daily at their offices recognize that they have undergone a digital transformation, and work from home habits will remain. The eBook "5 Security Lessons for Small Security Teams for a Post-COVID19 Era" ( download here ) helps companies prepare

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a novel attack that could allow criminals to trick a point of sale terminal into transacting with a victim's Mastercard contactless card while believing it to be a Visa card. The research, published by a group of academics from ETH Zurich, builds on a study  detailed last September  that delved into a PIN bypass attack, permitting bad actors to leverage a victim's stolen or lost Visa EMV-enabled credit card for making high-value purchases without knowledge of the card's PIN, and even fool the terminal into accepting unauthentic offline card transactions. "This is not just a mere card brand mixup but it has critical consequences," researchers David Basin, Ralf Sasse, and Jorge Toro said. "For example, criminals can use it in combination with the previous attack on Visa to also bypass the PIN for Mastercard cards. The cards of this brand were previously presumed protected by PIN." Following responsible disclosu