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As work ebbs with the typical end-of-year slowdown, now is a good time to review user roles and privileges and remove anyone who shouldn't have access as well as trim unnecessary permissions. In addition to saving some unnecessary license fees, a clean user inventory significantly enhances the security of your SaaS applications. From reducing risk to protecting against data leakage, here is how you can start the new year with a clean user list.  How Offboarded Users  Still  Have Access to Your Apps When employees leave a company, they trigger a series of changes to backend systems in their wake. First, they are removed from the company's identity provider (IdP), which kicks off an automated workflow that deactivates their email and removes access to all internal systems. When enterprises use an SSO (single sign-on), these former employees lose access to any online properties – including SaaS applications – that require SSO for login.  However, that doesn't mean that former employee

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI recently collaborated in a multinational operation to dismantle the notorious Qakbot malware and botnet. While the operation was successful in disrupting this long-running threat, concerns have arisen as it appears that Qakbot may still pose a danger in a reduced form. This article discusses the aftermath of the takedown, provides mitigation strategies, and offers guidance on determining past infections. The Takedown and Its Limitations During the takedown operation, law enforcement secured court orders to remove Qakbot malware from infected devices remotely. It was discovered that the malware had infected a substantial number of devices, with 700,000 machines globally, including 200,000 computers in the U.S., being compromised at the time of the takedown. However, recent reports suggest that Qakbot is still active but in a diminished state. The absence of arrests during the takedown operation indicates that only the command-and-cont

As cloud technology evolves, so does the challenge of securing sensitive data. In a world where data duplication and sprawl are common, organizations face increased risks of non-compliance and unauthorized data breaches. Sentra's DSPM (Data Security Posture Management) emerges as a comprehensive solution, offering continuous discovery and accurate classification of sensitive data in the cloud. This informative webinar, " Securing Sensitive Data Starts with Discovery and Classification: SoFi's DSPM Story " unveils the success story of SoFi, a pioneering cloud-native financial services provider, and its journey with Sentra's DSPM. It explores the challenges and triumphs in securing cloud data and a roadmap to implementing effective DSPM strategies in your organization. Expert Panel: Aviv Zisso:  As Director of Customer Success at Sentra, Aviv brings deep insights into data security needs and solutions. Pritam H Mungse:  SoFi's Director of Product Security, Pr

Wing Security recently announced that basic third-party risk assessment is  now available as a free product . But it raises the questions of how SaaS is connected to third-party risk management (TPRM) and what companies should do to ensure a proper SaaS-TPRM process is in place. In this article we will share 5 tips to manage the third-party risks associated with SaaS, but first...  What exactly is Third-Party Risk Management in SaaS? SaaS is rapidly growing, offering businesses convenience, swift implementations, and valuable opportunities. However, this growth introduces a security challenge where risks arise from the interconnected nature of SaaS supply chains. It is clear that before onboarding a new contractor or vendor, we need due diligence, security checks, and referrals. However, we now understand that in the SaaS domain, applications are, in fact, the go-to vendor of choice.  Let's explain: Any employee can very easily connect SaaS vendors to company data, granting them pe

As cloud technology evolves, so does the challenge of securing sensitive data. In a world where data duplication and sprawl are common, organizations face increased risks of non-compliance and unauthorized data breaches. Sentra's DSPM (Data Security Posture Management) emerges as a comprehensive solution, offering continuous discovery and accurate classification of sensitive data in the cloud. This informative webinar, " Securing Sensitive Data Starts with Discovery and Classification: SoFi's DSPM Story " unveils the success story of SoFi, a pioneering cloud-native financial services provider, and its journey with Sentra's DSPM. It explores the challenges and triumphs in securing cloud data and a roadmap to implementing effective DSPM strategies in your organization. Expert Panel: Aviv Zisso:  As Director of Customer Success at Sentra, Aviv brings deep insights into data security needs and solutions. Pritam H Mungse:  SoFi's Director of Product Security, Pr

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed a "severe design flaw" in Google Workspace's domain-wide delegation ( DWD ) feature that could be exploited by threat actors to facilitate privilege escalation and obtain unauthorized access to Workspace APIs without super admin privileges. "Such exploitation could result in theft of emails from Gmail, data exfiltration from Google Drive, or other unauthorized actions within Google Workspace APIs on all of the identities in the target domain," cybersecurity firm Hunters  said  in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. The design weakness – which remains active to this date – has been codenamed  DeleFriend  for its ability to manipulate existing delegations in the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Google Workspace without possessing super admin privileges. When reached for comment, Google disputed the characterization of the issue as a design flaw. "This report does not identify an underlying security issue in ou

Cybersecurity researchers are warning of publicly exposed Kubernetes configuration secrets that could put organizations at risk of supply chain attacks. "These encoded Kubernetes configuration secrets were uploaded to public repositories," Aqua security researchers Yakir Kadkoda and Assaf Morag  said  in a new research published earlier this week. Some of those impacted include two top blockchain companies and various other fortune-500 companies, according to the cloud security firm, which leveraged the GitHub API to fetch all entries containing .dockerconfigjson and .dockercfg types that  store credentials  for accessing a container image registry. Of the 438 records that potentially held valid credentials for registries, 203 records – about 46% – contained valid credentials that provided access to the respective registries. Ninety-three of the passwords were manually set by individuals, as opposed to the 345 that were computer-generated. "In the majority of cases, these creden

What do basketball teams, government agencies, and car manufacturers have in common? Each one has been breached, having confidential, proprietary, or private information stolen and exposed by insiders. In each case, the motivations and methods varied, but the risk remained the same: insiders have access to too much data with too few controls. Insider threats  continue to prove difficult for organizations to combat because — unlike an outsider — insiders can navigate sensitive data undetected and typically without suspicion. Cybersecurity is not the first industry to tackle insider threats, however. Espionage has a long history of facing and defending against insiders by using the "CIA Triad" principles of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Varonis' modern cybersecurity answer to insider risk is the data security triad of "sensitivity, access, and activity." Using these three dimensions of data security, you can help reduce the risk and impact of an insider attack. Sen

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has given a November 17, 2023, deadline for federal agencies and organizations to apply mitigations to secure against a number of security flaws in Juniper Junos OS that came to light in August. The agency on Monday  added  five vulnerabilities to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation - CVE-2023-36844  (CVSS score: 5.3) - Juniper Junos OS EX Series PHP External Variable Modification Vulnerability CVE-2023-36845  (CVSS score: 5.3) - Juniper Junos OS EX Series and SRX Series PHP External Variable Modification Vulnerability CVE-2023-36846  (CVSS score: 5.3) - Juniper Junos OS SRX Series Missing Authentication for Critical Function Vulnerability CVE-2023-36847  (CVSS score: 5.3) - Juniper Junos OS EX Series Missing Authentication for Critical Function Vulnerability CVE-2023-36851  (CVSS score: 5.3) - Juniper Junos OS SRX Series Missing Authentication for Critical

Cybersecurity researchers have warned about a Windows version of a wiper malware that was previously observed targeting Linux systems in cyber attacks aimed at Israel. Dubbed  BiBi-Windows Wiper  by BlackBerry, the wiper is the Windows counterpart of  BiBi-Linux Wiper , which has been put to use by a pro-Hamas hacktivist group in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war last month. "The Windows variant [...] confirms that the threat actors who created the wiper are continuing to build out the malware, and indicates an expansion of the attack to target end user machines and application servers," the Canadian company  said  Friday. Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET is  tracking  the actor behind the wiper under the name BiBiGun, noting that the Windows variant (bibi.exe) is designed to overwrite data in the C:\Users directory recursively with junk data and append ".BiBi" to the filename. The BiBi-Windows Wiper artifact is said to have been compiled on October 21, 2023, two

QNAP has released security updates to address two critical security flaws impacting its operating system that could result in arbitrary code execution. Tracked as  CVE-2023-23368  (CVSS score: 9.8), the vulnerability is described as a command injection bug affecting QTS, QuTS hero, and QuTScloud. "If exploited, the vulnerability could allow remote attackers to execute commands via a network," the company said in an advisory published over the weekend. The shortcoming spans the below versions - QTS 5.0.x (Fixed in QTS 5.0.1.2376 build 20230421 and later) QTS 4.5.x (Fixed in QTS 4.5.4.2374 build 20230416 and later) QuTS hero h5.0.x (Fixed in QuTS hero h5.0.1.2376 build 20230421 and later) QuTS hero h4.5.x (Fixed in QuTS hero h4.5.4.2374 build 20230417 and later) QuTScloud c5.0.x (Fixed in QuTScloud c5.0.1.2374 and later) Also fixed by QNAP is another command injection flaw in QTS, Multimedia Console, and Media Streaming add-on ( CVE-2023-23369 , CVSS score: 9.0) th

The threat actors linked to  Kinsing  have been observed attempting to exploit the recently disclosed Linux privilege escalation flaw called Looney Tunables as part of a "new experimental campaign" designed to breach cloud environments. "Intriguingly, the attacker is also broadening the horizons of their cloud-native attacks by extracting credentials from the Cloud Service Provider (CSP)," cloud security firm Aqua said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The development marks the first publicly documented instance of active exploitation of  Looney Tunables  ( CVE-2023-4911 ), which could allow a threat actor to  gain root privileges . Kinsing actors have a track record of opportunistically and swiftly adapting their attack chains to exploit newly disclosed security flaws to their advantage, having most recently weaponized a  high-severity bug in Openfire  ( CVE-2023-32315 ) to achieve remote code execution. The latest set of attacks entails exploiting a

New findings have shed light on what's said to be a lawful attempt to covertly intercept traffic originating from jabber[.]ru (aka xmpp[.]ru), an  XMPP -based instant messaging service, via servers hosted on Hetzner and Linode (a subsidiary of Akamai) in Germany. "The attacker has issued several new TLS certificates using Let's Encrypt service which were used to hijack encrypted  STARTTLS connections  on port 5222 using transparent [man-in-the-middle] proxy," a security researcher who goes by the alias ValdikSS  said  earlier this week. "The attack was discovered due to the expiration of one of the MiTM certificates, which haven't been reissued." Evidence gathered so far points to the traffic redirection being configured on the hosting provider network, ruling out other possibilities, such as a server breach or a spoofing attack. The wiretapping is estimated to have lasted for as long as six months, from April 18, 2023, although it's been confi

In today's digital landscape, around  60%  of corporate data now resides in the cloud, with Amazon S3 standing as the backbone of data storage for many major corporations.  Despite S3 being a secure service from a reputable provider, its pivotal role in handling vast amounts of sensitive data (customer personal information, financial data, intellectual property, etc.), provides a juicy target for threat actors. It remains susceptible to ransomware attacks which are often initiated using leaked access keys that have accidentally been exposed by human error and have access to the organization's buckets. To effectively combat these evolving threats, it is vital to ensure that your organization has visibility into your S3 environment, that you are aware of how threat actors can compromise data for ransom and most importantly, best practices for minimizing the risk of cyber criminals successfully executing such an attack. Ensuring Visibility: CloudTrail and Server Access Logs V

Financial data is much more than just a collection of numbers; it is a crucial component of any business and a prime target for cybercriminals. It's important to understand that financial records can be a veritable treasure trove for digital pirates. A security breach not only puts customers' personal information in jeopardy but also enables fraudsters to drain company funds and exploit clients. Data threats can arise from a variety of sources, ranging from malicious actors with harmful intentions to simple mistakes, such as sending a confidential email to the wrong recipient. The methods used to compromise data are diverse and constantly evolving, including ransomware attacks and inadvertent leaks in cloud storage. Navigating this complex landscape can be daunting, but knowledge is empowering. We're excited to announce that we are hosting an exclusive webinar in collaboration with experts from Win Zip. Titled " Locking Down Financial and Accounting Data — Best Dat

Ensuring sensitive data remains confidential, protected from unauthorized access, and compliant with data privacy regulations is paramount. Data breaches result in financial and reputational damage but also lead to legal consequences. Therefore, robust data access security measures are essential to safeguard an organization's assets, maintain customer trust, and meet regulatory requirements.  A comprehensive  Data Security Platform  is essential for full visibility and control of sensitive data. One example is Satori's Universal Data Permissions Scanner (UDPS), an open-source authorization analysis tool.   UDPS , available on GitHub, enables universal visibility into data access permissions across various data stores. With this tool, it's easier to identify who has the potential to access sensitive data, which can help organizations take a proactive approach to enhancing their security posture, streamline compliance, and ensure well-governed data access. Understanding the Need for U