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Update: The U.K. National Crime Agency (NCA) has confirmed the takedown of LockBit infrastructure. Read here for more details . An international law enforcement operation has led to the seizure of multiple darknet domains operated by  LockBit , one of the most prolific ransomware groups, marking the latest in a long list of digital takedowns. While the full extent of the effort, codenamed  Operation Cronos , is presently unknown, visiting the group's .onion website displays a seizure banner containing the message "The site is now under the control of law enforcement." Authorities from 11 countries, Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S., alongside Europol participated in the joint exercise. Malware research group VX-Underground, in a  message  posted on X (formerly Twitter), said the websites were taken down by exploiting a critical security flaw impacting PHP ( CVE-2023-3824 , CVSS score: 9.8

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered an "implementation vulnerability" that has made it possible to reconstruct encryption keys and decrypt data locked by Rhysida ransomware. The findings were published last week by a group of researchers from Kookmin University and the Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA). "Through a comprehensive analysis of Rhysida Ransomware, we identified an implementation vulnerability, enabling us to regenerate the encryption key used by the malware," the researchers  said . The development marks the first successful decryption of the ransomware strain, which first made its appearance in May 2023. A  recovery tool  is being distributed through KISA. The study is also the latest to achieve data decryption by exploiting implementation vulnerabilities in ransomware, after  Magniber v2 , Ragnar Locker,  Avaddon , and  Hive . Rhysida , which is known to share overlaps with another ransomware crew called Vice Society, leverages a ta

It comes as no surprise that today's cyber threats are orders of magnitude more complex than those of the past. And the ever-evolving tactics that attackers use demand the adoption of better, more holistic and consolidated ways to meet this non-stop challenge. Security teams constantly look for ways to reduce risk while improving security posture, but many approaches offer piecemeal solutions – zeroing in on one particular element of the evolving threat landscape challenge – missing the forest for the trees.  In the last few years, Exposure Management has become known as a comprehensive way of reigning in the chaos, giving organizations a true fighting chance to reduce risk and improve posture. In this article I'll cover what Exposure Management is, how it stacks up against some alternative approaches and why building an Exposure Management program should be on  your 2024 to-do list. What is Exposure Management?  Exposure Management is the systematic identification, evaluation,

Three new security vulnerabilities have been discovered in Azure HDInsight's Apache  Hadoop ,  Kafka , and  Spark  services that could be exploited to achieve privilege escalation and a regular expression denial-of-service ( ReDoS ) condition. "The new vulnerabilities affect any authenticated user of Azure HDInsight services such as Apache Ambari and Apache Oozie," Orca security researcher Lidor Ben Shitrit  said  in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. The list of flaws is as follows - CVE-2023-36419  (CVSS score: 8.8) - Azure HDInsight Apache Oozie Workflow Scheduler XML External Entity (XXE) Injection Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability CVE-2023-38156  (CVSS score: 7.2) - Azure HDInsight Apache Ambari Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) Injection Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Azure HDInsight Apache Oozie Regular Expression Denial-of-Service (ReDoS) Vulnerability (no CVE) The two privilege escalation flaws could be exploited by an authenticate

Microsoft on Friday revealed that it was the target of a nation-state attack on its corporate systems that resulted in the theft of emails and attachments from senior executives and other individuals in the company's cybersecurity and legal departments. The Windows maker attributed the attack to a Russian advanced persistent threat (APT) group it tracks as  Midnight Blizzard  (formerly Nobelium), which is also known as APT29, BlueBravo, Cloaked Ursa, Cozy Bear, and The Dukes. It further said that it immediately took steps to investigate, disrupt, and mitigate the malicious activity upon discovery on January 12, 2024. The campaign is estimated to have commenced in late November 2023. "The threat actor used a  password spray attack  to compromise a legacy non-production test tenant account and gain a foothold, and then used the account's permissions to access a very small percentage of Microsoft corporate email accounts, including members of our senior leadership team a

In the current digital landscape, data has emerged as a crucial asset for organizations, akin to currency. It's the lifeblood of any organization in today's interconnected and digital world. Thus, safeguarding the data is of paramount importance. Its importance is magnified in on-premises Exchange Server environments where vital business communication and emails are stored and managed.  In this article, you will learn about the evolving threats of data loss, the shift in responsibilities of administrators, and key backup and recovery strategies for preventing data loss in the Exchange Server environment. Data Loss Scenarios in Exchange Servers Data loss in on-premises Exchange Server environment has become increasingly common. Cybersecurity threats, like ransomware attacks, have emerged as a significant cause of data loss in recent years, with many financially motivated threat actors increasingly targeting the vulnerabilities in Exchange Servers. These attackers try to exploit

Wing Security announced today that it now offers  free discovery and a paid tier for automated control  over thousands of AI and AI-powered SaaS applications. This will allow companies to better protect their intellectual property (IP) and data against the growing and evolving risks of AI usage. SaaS applications seem to be multiplying by the day, and so does their integration of AI capabilities. According to Wing Security, a SaaS security company that researched over 320 companies, a staggering 83.2% use GenAI applications. While this statistic might not come as a surprise, the research showed that 99.7% of organizations use SaaS applications that leverage AI capabilities to deliver their services. This usage of GenAI in SaaS applications that are not 'pure' AI often goes unnoticed by security teams and users alike. 70% of the most popular GenAI applications may use your data to train their models, and in many cases it's completely up to you to configure it differently

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Tuesday prohibited data broker Outlogic , which was previously known as X-Mode Social , from sharing or selling any sensitive location data with third-parties. The ban is part of a  settlement  over allegations that the company "sold precise location data that could be used to track people's visits to sensitive locations such as medical and reproductive health clinics, places of religious worship and domestic abuse shelters." The  proposed order  also requires it to destroy all the location data it previously gathered unless it obtains consumer consent or ensures the data has been de-identified or rendered non-sensitive as well as maintain a comprehensive list of sensitive locations and develop a comprehensive privacy program with a data retention schedule to prevent abuse. The FTC accused X-Mode Social and Outlogic of failing to establish adequate safeguards to prevent the misuse of such data by downstream customers. The dev

Poorly secured Microsoft SQL (MS SQL) servers are being targeted in the U.S., European Union, and Latin American (LATAM) regions as part of an ongoing financially motivated campaign to gain initial access. "The analyzed threat campaign appears to end in one of two ways, either the selling of 'access' to the compromised host, or the ultimate delivery of ransomware payloads," Securonix researchers Den Iuzvyk, Tim Peck, and Oleg Kolesnikov said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. The campaign, linked to actors of Turkish origin, has been codenamed  RE#TURGENCE  by the cybersecurity firm. Initial access to the servers entails conducting brute-force attacks, followed by the use of  xp_cmdshell configuration option  to run shell commands on the compromised host. This activity mirrors that of a prior campaign dubbed  DB#JAMMER  that came to light in September 2023. This stage paves the way for the retrieval of a PowerShell script from a remote server that's responsible f

Collaboration is a powerful selling point for SaaS applications. Microsoft, Github, Miro, and others promote the collaborative nature of their software applications that allows users to do more. Links to files, repositories, and boards can be shared with anyone, anywhere. This encourages teamwork that helps create stronger campaigns and projects by encouraging collaboration among employees dispersed across regions and departments.  At the same time, the openness of data SaaS platforms can be problematic. A  2023 survey  by the Cloud Security Alliance and Adaptive Shield found that 58% of security incidents over the last two years involved data leakage. Clearly, sharing is good, but data sharing must be put in check. Most SaaS applications have mechanisms to control sharing. These tools are quite effective in ensuring that company resources aren't open for display on the public web. This article will look at three common data leakage scenarios and recommend best practices for safe sh

Security researchers from Ruhr University Bochum have discovered a vulnerability in the Secure Shell ( SSH ) cryptographic network protocol that could allow an attacker to downgrade the connection's security by breaking the integrity of the secure channel. Called  Terrapin  ( CVE-2023-48795 , CVSS score: 5.9), the exploit has been described as the "first ever practically exploitable prefix truncation attack." "By carefully adjusting the sequence numbers during the handshake, an attacker can remove an arbitrary amount of messages sent by the client or server at the beginning of the secure channel without the client or server noticing it," researchers Fabian Bäumer, Marcus Brinkmann, and Jörg Schwenk  said . SSH is a  method  for securely sending commands to a computer over an unsecured network. It relies on cryptography to authenticate and encrypt connections between devices. This is accomplished by means of a handshake in which a client and server agree up

John Hanley of IBM Security shares 4 key findings from the highly acclaimed annual Cost of a Data Breach Report 2023 What is the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report? The IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report is an annual report that provides organizations with quantifiable information about the financial impacts of breaches. With this data, they can make data driven decisions about how they implement security in their organization. The report is conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored, analyzed, and published by IBM Security. In 2023, the 18th year the report was published, the report analyzed 553 breaches across 16 countries and 17 industries. According to Etay Maor, Senior Director of Security Strategy at  Cato Networks , "We tend to talk a lot about security issues and solutions. This report puts a number behind threats and solutions and provides a lot of information to support claims of how a threat actor, a solution or a process impacts you financially." Key Finding #1: The

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) on Friday  unveiled draft proposals  detailing its plans to tackle data security events in the country using a color-coded system. The effort is designed to "improve the comprehensive response capacity for data security incidents, to ensure timely and effective control, mitigation and elimination of hazards and losses caused by data security incidents, to protect the lawful rights and interests of individuals and organizations, and to safeguard national security and public interests," the department said. The 25-page document encompasses all incidents in which data has been illegally accessed, leaked, destroyed, or tampered with, categorizing them into four hierarchical tiers based on the scope and the degree of harm caused -  Red:  Level I ("especially significant"), which applies to widespread shutdowns, substantial loss of business processing capability, interruptions arising due to serious a

Network penetration testing plays a crucial role in protecting businesses in the ever-evolving world of cybersecurity. Yet, business leaders and IT pros have misconceptions about this process, which impacts their security posture and decision-making.  This blog acts as a quick guide on network penetration testing, explaining what it is, debunking common myths and reimagining its role in today's security landscape.  What is network penetration testing? Network penetration testing  is a proactive approach to cybersecurity in which security experts simulate cyberattacks to identify gaps in an organization's cyberdefense. The key objective of this process is to identify and rectify weaknesses before hackers can exploit them. This process is sometimes called "pentesting" or "ethical hacking."  Network pentesting checks for chinks in an organization's armor to help mitigate cyber-risks and protect against data, financial and reputational losses.  Differe