iot devices | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A new variant of the notorious Mirai botnet has been found leveraging several security vulnerabilities to propagate itself to Linux and IoT devices. Observed during the second half of 2022, the new version has been dubbed  V3G4  by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, which identified three different campaigns likely conducted by the same threat actor. "Once the vulnerable devices are compromised, they will be fully controlled by attackers and become a part of the botnet," Unit 42 researchers  said . "The threat actor has the capability to utilize those devices to conduct further attacks, such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks." The attacks primarily single out exposed servers and networking devices running Linux, with the adversary weaponizing as many as 13 flaws that could lead to remote code execution (RCE). Some of the notable flaws relate to critical flaws in Atlassian Confluence Server and Data Center, DrayTek Vigor routers, Airspan AirSpot, and Geu...

A newly designed privacy-sensitive architecture aims to enable developers to create smart home apps in a manner that addresses data sharing concerns and puts users in control over their personal information.  Dubbed  Peekaboo  by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, the  system  "leverages an in-home hub to pre-process and minimize outgoing data in a structured and enforceable manner before sending it to external cloud servers." Peekaboo operates on the principle of data minimization, which refers to the practice of limiting data collection to only what is required to fulfill a specific purpose. To achieve this, the system requires developers to explicitly declare the relevant data collection behaviors in the form of a manifest file that's then fed into an in-home trusted hub to transmit sensitive data from smart home apps such as smart doorbells on a need-to-know basis. The hub not only functions as a mediator between raw data from IoT devices and...

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been a cornerstone of organizational cybersecurity. Nearly as old as the discipline of cybersecurity itself, it aims to help organizations identify and address potential security issues before they become serious problems. Yet, in recent years, the limitations of this approach have become increasingly evident.  At its core, Vulnerability Management processes remain essential for identifying and addressing weaknesses. But as time marches on and attack avenues evolve, this approach is beginning to show its age. In a recent report, How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management (Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, 8 November 2024, Mitchell Schneider Et Al.), we believe Gartner® addresses this point precisely and demonstrates how organizations can – and must – shift from a vulnerability-centric strategy to a broader Exposure Management (EM) framework. We feel it's more than a worthwhile read an...

As many as seven security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in PTC's Axeda software that could be weaponized to gain unauthorized access to medical and IoT devices. Collectively called " Access:7 ," the weaknesses – three of which are rated Critical in severity – potentially affect more than  150 device models  spanning over 100 different manufacturers, posing a significant supply chain risk. PTC's Axeda solution includes a cloud platform that allows device manufacturers to establish connectivity to remotely monitor, manage and service a wide range of connected machines, sensors, and devices via what's called the agent, which is installed by the OEMs before the devices are sold to customers. "Access:7 could enable hackers to remotely execute malicious code, access sensitive data, or alter configuration on medical and IoT devices running PTC's Axeda remote code and management agent," researchers from Forescout and CyberMDX said in a joint report...

A security vulnerability has been found affecting several versions of ThroughTek Kalay P2P Software Development Kit (SDK), which could be abused by a remote attacker to take control of an affected device and potentially lead to remote code execution. Tracked as CVE-2021-28372 (CVSS score: 9.6) and  discovered  by FireEye Mandiant in late 2020, the weakness concerns an improper access control flaw in ThroughTek point-to-point (P2P) products, successful exploitation of which could result in the "ability to listen to live audio, watch real time video data, and compromise device credentials for further attacks based on exposed device functionality." "Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could permit remote code execution and unauthorized access to sensitive information, such as to camera audio/video feeds," the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)  noted  in an advisory. There are believed to be 83 million active devices on the Kala...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday issued an advisory regarding a critical software supply-chain flaw impacting ThroughTek's software development kit (SDK) that could be abused by an adversary to gain improper access to audio and video streams. "Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could permit unauthorized access to sensitive information, such as camera audio/video feeds," CISA  said  in the alert. ThroughTek's point-to-point ( P2P ) SDK is widely used by IoT devices with video surveillance or audio/video transmission capability such as IP cameras, baby and pet monitoring cameras, smart home appliances, and sensors to provide remote access to the media content over the internet. Tracked as CVE-2021-32934 (CVSS score: 9.1), the shortcoming affects ThroughTek P2P products, versions 3.1.5 and before as well as SDK versions with nossl tag, and stems from a lack of sufficient protection when transferring data between ...

Microsoft researchers on Thursday disclosed two dozen vulnerabilities affecting a wide range of Internet of Things (IoT) and Operational Technology (OT) devices used in industrial, medical, and enterprise networks that could be abused by adversaries to execute arbitrary code and even cause critical systems to crash. "These remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities cover more than 25 CVEs and potentially affect a wide range of domains, from consumer and medical IoT to Industrial IoT, Operational Technology, and industrial control systems,"  said  Microsoft's 'Section 52' Azure Defender for IoT research group. The flaws have been collectively named " BadAlloc ," for they are rooted in standard  memory allocation functions  spanning widely used real-time operating systems (RTOS), embedded software development kits (SDKs), and C standard library (libc) implementations. A lack of proper input validations associated with these memory allocation functions ...

Newly discovered security vulnerabilities in ADT's Blue (formerly LifeShield) home security cameras could have been exploited to hijack both audio and video streams. The  vulnerabilities  (tracked as CVE-2020-8101) were identified in the video doorbell camera by Bitdefender researchers in February 2020 before they were eventually addressed on August 17, 2020. LifeShield was acquired by Florida-based ADT Inc. in 2019, with Lifeshield's DIY home security solutions rebranded as Blue as of January 2020. The company's products had a 33.6% market share in the U.S. last year. The security issues in the doorbell camera allow an attacker to Obtain the administrator password of the camera by simply knowing its MAC address, which is used to identify a device uniquely Inject commands locally to gain root access, and Access audio and video feeds using an unprotected  RTSP  (Real-Time Streaming Protocol) server The doorbell is designed to periodically send heartbeat mes...

The Department of Homeland Security and CISA ICS-CERT today issued a critical security advisory warning about over a dozen newly discovered vulnerabilities affecting billions of Internet-connected devices manufactured by many vendors across the globe. Dubbed " Ripple20 ," the set of 19 vulnerabilities resides in a low-level TCP/IP software library developed by Treck, which, if weaponized, could let remote attackers gain complete control over targeted devices—without requiring any user interaction. According to Israeli cybersecurity company JSOF—who discovered these flaws—the affected devices are in use across various industries, ranging from home/consumer devices to medical, healthcare, data centers, enterprises, telecom, oil, gas, nuclear, transportation, and many others across critical infrastructure. "Just a few examples: data could be stolen off of a printer, an infusion pump behavior changed, or industrial control devices could be made to malfunction. An ...

Researchers have uncovered a potential means to profile and track online users using a novel approach that combines device identifiers with their biometric information. The details come from a newly published research titled "Nowhere to Hide: Cross-modal Identity Leakage between Biometrics and Devices" by a group of academics from the University of Liverpool, New York University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and University at Buffalo SUNY. "Prior studies on identity theft only consider the attack goal for a single type of identity, either for device IDs or biometrics," Chris Xiaoxuan Lu, Assistant Professor at the University of Liverpool, told The Hacker News in an email interview. "The missing part, however, is to explore the feasibility of compromising the two types of identities simultaneously and deeply understand their correlation in multi-modal IoT environments." The researchers presented the findings at the Web Conference 2020 held...

There are over a hundred potential ways hackers can ruin your life by having access to your WiFi network that's also connected to your computers, smartphones, and other smart devices. Whether it's about exploiting operating system and software vulnerabilities or manipulating network traffic, every attack relies on the reachability between an attacker and the targeted devices. In recent years, we have seen how hundreds of widely used smart-but-insecure devices made it easier for remote attackers to sneak into connected networks without breaking WiFi passwords. In the latest research shared with The Hacker News, Check Point experts today revealed a new high-severity vulnerability affecting Philips Hue Smart Light Bulbs that can be exploited over-the-air from over 100 meters away to gain entry into a targeted WiFi network. The underlying high-severity vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2020-6007 , resides in the way Philips implemented the Zigbee communication protocol in it...

Security researchers at Bitdefender have discovered a high-severity security vulnerability in Amazon's Ring Video Doorbell Pro devices that could allow nearby attackers to steal your WiFi password and launch a variety of cyberattacks using MitM against other devices connected to the same network. In case you don't own one of these, Amazon's Ring Video Doorbell is a smart wireless home security doorbell camera that lets you see, hear and speak to anyone on your property from anywhere in the World. The smart doorbell needs to be connected to your WiFi network, allowing you to remotely access the device from a smartphone app to perform all tasks wirelessly. While setting up the device for the very first time and share your WiFi password with it, you need to enable the configuration mode from the doorbell. Entering into the configuration mode turns on a built-in, unprotected wireless access point, allowing the RING smartphone app installed on your device to automati...

I have said it before, and I will say it again — Smart devices are one of the dumbest technologies, so far, when it comes to protecting users' privacy and security. As more and more smart devices are being sold worldwide, consumers should be aware of security and privacy risks associated with the so-called intelligent devices. When it comes to internet-connected devices, smart TVs are the ones that have highly-evolved, giving consumers a lot of options to enjoy streaming, browsing the Internet, gaming, and saving files on the Cloud—technically allowing you to do everything on it as a full-fledged PC. Apparently, in the past few years we have reported how Smart TVs can be used to spy on end users without their explicit consent, how remote hackers can even take full control over a majority of Smart TVs without having any physical access to them, and how flaws in Smart TVs allowed hackers to hijack TV screen . Now most recently, Smart TVs selling under SUPRA brand-name h...

A team at a robot cybersecurity startup has released a free, open-source tool for information security professionals to help them easily 'footprint' and detect unprotected robots, not only connected to the Internet, but also to the industrial environments where they operate. Dubbed " Aztarna ," the framework has been developed by Alias Robotics , a Spanish cybersecurity firm focused on robots and is capable of detecting vulnerable industrial routers and robots powered by ROS (Robot Operating System), SROS (Secure ROS) and other robot technologies. Written in Python 3, Aztarna is basically a port scanning tool with a built-in database of fingerprints for industrial routers (including Westermo, Moxa, Sierra Wireless, and eWON), and robotic technologies and components, as well as patterns that power the tool to test those devices against various known vulnerabilities and security misconfigurations. Researchers at Alias Robotics told The Hacker News that Aztarna h...

A group of hackers has hijacked tens of thousands of Google's Chromecast streaming dongles, Google Home smart speakers and smart TVs with built-in Chromecast technology in recent weeks by exploiting a bug that's allegedly been ignored by Google for almost five years. The attackers, who go by Twitter handles @HackerGiraffe and @j3ws3r, managed to hijack Chromecasts' feeds and display a pop-up, spreading a security warning as well as controversial YouTube star PewDiePie propaganda. The hackers are the same ones who hijacked more than 50,000 internet-connected printers worldwide late last year by exploiting vulnerable printers to print out flyers asking everyone to subscribe to PewDiePie YouTube channel. This time, the hackers remotely scanned the internet for compatible devices, including Chromecasts, exposed to the internet through poorly configured routers that have Universal Plug and Play [UPnP] enabled by default. The hackers then exploited a design flaw in Chrome...

If your Google Home, Home Mini and/or Google Chromecast streaming stick were not working properly, you are not alone. Google Home, Home Mini, and Chromecast were down globally for many users for several hours, leaving a lot of people with trouble watching TV, controlling smart home gadgets, and listening to music. Yesterday, hundreds of Chromecasts and Home users began complaining about their devices not working properly on both the official "Made by Google" Twitter account and Down Detector. Later, Google confirmed that its Home and Chromecast across the world went down due to an unspecified "issue," and that the company was investigating the issue and working on a solution, but did not provide any kind of explanation about the glitch. The issue appears to be affecting devices that work using Google's Home technology, which is a smart ecosystem that allows users to stream content to devices. "Bug confirmed... We use Chromecast in all our conf...

Researchers have found that even after having an advanced encryption scheme in place, more than 100 million Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices from thousands of vendors are vulnerable to a downgrade attack that could allow attackers to gain unauthorized access to your devices. The issue resides in the implementation of Z-Wave protocol —a wireless, radio frequency (RF) based communications technology that is primarily being used by home automation devices to communicate with each other. Z-Wave protocol has been designed to offer an easy process to set up pairing and remotely control appliances—such as lighting control, security systems, thermostats, windows, locks, swimming pools and garage door openers—over a distance of up to 100 meters (330 feet). The latest security standard for Z-Wave, called S2 security framework, uses an advanced key exchange mechanism, i.e., Elliptic-Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) anonymous key agreement protocol, to share unique network keys between the con...

Internet-connected technology, also known as the Internet of Things (IoT), is now part of daily life, with smart assistants like Siri and Alexa to cars, watches, toasters, fridges, thermostats, lights, and the list goes on and on. But of much greater concern, enterprises are unable to secure each and every device on their network, giving cybercriminals hold on their network hostage with just one insecure device. Since IoT is a double-edged sword, it not only poses huge risks to enterprises worldwide but also has the potential to severely disrupt other organisations, or the Internet itself . There's no better example than Mirai , the botnet malware that knocked the world's biggest and most popular websites offline for few hours over a year ago. We have another great example that showcases how one innocent looking insecure IoT device connected to your network can cause security nightmares. Nicole Eagan, the CEO of cybersecurity company Darktrace, told attendees at...

If your smart devices are smart enough to make your life easier, then their smart behaviour could also be exploited by hackers to invade your privacy or spy on you, if not secured properly. Recent research conducted by security researchers at threat prevention firm Check Point highlights privacy concern surrounding smart home devices manufactured by LG. Check Point researchers discovered a security vulnerability in LG SmartThinQ smart home devices that allowed them to hijack internet-connected devices like refrigerators, ovens, dishwashers, air conditioners, dryers, and washing machines manufactured by LG. ...and what's worse? Hackers could even remotely take control of LG's Hom-Bot, a camera-equipped robotic vacuum cleaner, and access the live video feed to spy on anything in the device's vicinity. This hack doesn't even require hacker and targeted device to be on the same network. Dubbed HomeHack , the vulnerability resides in the mobile app and cloud app...