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Over a month ago we reported about two critical zero-day vulnerabilities in the world's 2nd most popular database management software MySQL: MySQL Remote Root Code Execution (CVE-2016-6662) Privilege Escalation (CVE-2016-6663) At that time, Polish security researcher Dawid Golunski of Legal Hackers who discovered these vulnerabilities published technical details and proof-of-concept exploit code for the first bug only and promised to release details of the second bug (CVE-2016-6663) later. On Tuesday, Golunski has released proof-of-concept (POC) exploits for two vulnerabilities: One is the previously promised critical privilege escalation vulnerability ( CVE-2016-6663 ), and another is a new root privilege escalation bug ( CVE-2016-6664 ) that could allow an attacker to take full control over the database. Both the vulnerabilities affect MySQL version 5.5.51 and earlier, MySQL version 5.6.32 and earlier, and MySQL version 5.7.14 and earlier, as well as MySQL forks

Google has once again publicly disclosed a zero-day vulnerability in current versions of Windows operating system before Microsoft has a patch ready. Yes, the critical zero-day is unpatched and is being used by attackers in the wild. Google made the public disclosure of the vulnerability just 10 days after privately reporting the issue to Microsoft, giving the chocolate factory little time to patch issues and deploy a fix. According to a blog post by Google's Threat Analysis Group, the reason behind going public is that it has seen exploits for the vulnerability in the wild and according to its internal policy , companies should patch or publicly report such bugs after seven days. Windows Zero-Day is Actively being Exploited in the Wild The zero-day is a local privilege escalation vulnerability that exists in the Windows operating system kernel. If exploited, the flaw can be used to escape the sandbox protection and execute malicious code on the compromised system.

Imagine a world where the software that powers your favorite apps, secures your online transactions, and keeps your digital life could be outsmarted and taken over by a cleverly disguised piece of code. This isn't a plot from the latest cyber-thriller; it's actually been a reality for years now. How this will change – in a positive or negative direction – as artificial intelligence (AI) takes on a larger role in software development is one of the big uncertainties related to this brave new world. In an era where AI promises to revolutionize how we live and work, the conversation about its security implications cannot be sidelined. As we increasingly rely on AI for tasks ranging from mundane to mission-critical, the question is no longer just, "Can AI  boost cybersecurity ?" (sure!), but also "Can AI  be hacked? " (yes!), "Can one use AI  to hack? " (of course!), and "Will AI  produce secure software ?" (well…). This thought leadership article is about the latter. Cydrill  (a

A nine-year-old critical vulnerability has been discovered in virtually all versions of the Linux operating system and is actively being exploited in the wild. Dubbed " Dirty COW ," the Linux kernel security flaw (CVE-2016-5195) is a mere privilege-escalation vulnerability, but researchers are taking it extremely seriously due to many reasons. First, it's very easy to develop exploits that work reliably. Secondly, the Dirty COW flaw exists in a section of the Linux kernel, which is a part of virtually every distro of the open-source operating system, including RedHat, Debian, and Ubuntu, released for almost a decade. And most importantly, the researchers have discovered attack code that indicates the Dirty COW vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild. Dirty COW potentially allows any installed malicious app to gain administrative (root-level) access to a device and completely hijack it within just 5 seconds. Earlier this week, Linus Torvalds admi

Android has Fallen! Yet another set of Android security vulnerabilities has been discovered in Qualcomm chipsets that affect more than 900 Million Android smartphones and tablets worldwide. What's even worse: Most of those affected Android devices will probably never be patched. Dubbed " Quadrooter ," the set of four vulnerabilities discovered in devices running Android Marshmallow and earlier that ship with Qualcomm chip could allow an attacker to gain root-level access to any Qualcomm device. The chip, according to the latest statistics, is found in more than 900 Million Android tablets and smartphones. That's a very big number. The vulnerabilities have been disclosed by a team of Check Point researchers at the DEF CON 24 security conference in Las Vegas. Critical Quadrooter Vulnerabilities: The four security vulnerabilities are: CVE-2016-2503 discovered in Qualcomm's GPU driver and fixed in Google's Android Security Bulletin for July

How much a Windows zero-day exploit that affects all versions of Windows operating system costs on the black market? It's $95,000, at least, for the one recently spotted by security researchers. Researchers from Trustwave's SpiderLabs team have uncovered a zero-day exploit on Russian underground malware forum exploit.in, affecting all versions of Microsoft Windows OS from Windows 2000 all the way up to a fully patched version of Windows 10. The zero-day exploit for the previously unknown vulnerability in " every version " of Windows is openly sold for $90,000 ( over £62,000 ). The security team originally discovered the zero-day exploit last month when the firm saw its ad on a Russian hacking forum for $95,000. However, the price has now been dropped to $90,000. The zero-day vulnerability in question claims to be a Local Privilege Escalation (LPE) bug in Windows that offers admin access to run malicious code on a victim's PC and is less dangerous th

With the release of 12 Security Bulletins , Microsoft addresses a total of 56 vulnerabilities in its different products. The bulletins include five critical updates, out of which two address vulnerabilities in all versions of Windows. The September Patch Tuesday update (released on second Tuesday of each month) makes a total of 105 Security Bulletins being released this year; which is more than the previous year with still three months remaining for the current year to end. The reason for the increase in the total number of security bulletins within such less time might be because of Windows 10 release and its installation reaching to a score of 100 million. Starting from MS15-094 to   MS15-105 ( 12 security bulletins ) Microsoft rates the severity of the vulnerabilities and their impact on the affected software. Bulletins MS15-094 and MS15-095 are the cumulative updates, meaning these are product-specific fixes for security related vulnerabilities that are rated

A security researcher has discovered a critical vulnerability in the latest version of Apple's OS X Yosemite  that could allow anyone to obtain unrestricted root user privileges with the help of code that fits in a tweet. The privilege-escalation vulnerability initially reported on Tuesday by German researcher Stefan Esser , could be exploited by to circumvent security protections and gain full control of Mac computers. The most worrying part is that this critical vulnerability is yet to be fixed by Apple in the latest release of its operating system. This could make it easier for hackers to surreptitiously infect Macs with rootkits and other types of persistent malware. Thanks to an environment variable DYLD_PRINT_TO_FILE Apple added to the code of OS X 10.10 Yosemite. Apple Mac OS X Vulnerability Gives Full Control of your Mac This environment variable specifies where in the file system an operating system component called the OS X dynamic linker dyld

Among several vulnerabilities, Microsoft on Tuesday patched a critical vulnerability that could be exploited by hackers to bypass security measures on all versions of Windows operating systems from XP to Windows 10, just by modifying a single bit. The local privilege escalation vulnerability ( CVE-2015-0057 ) could give attackers total control of the victims' machines, explains Udi Yavo, the chief technology officer at the security firm enSilo. " A threat actor that gains access to a Windows machine can exploit this vulnerability to bypass all Windows security measures, defeating mitigation measures such as sandboxing, kernel segregation and memory randomization ," said Yavo. INTERESTING PART OF THE FLAW Yavo continued, " Interestingly, the exploit requires modifying only a single bit of the Windows operating system. " The flaw existed in the graphical user interface (GUI) component of the Win32k.sys module within the Windows Kernel which, amon

Google has once again released the details of a new privilege escalation bug in Microsoft's Windows 8.1 operating system before Microsoft planned to patch the bug, triggering a new quarrel between the two tech giants. This is second time in less than a month when the Google's security research team known as Project Zero released details of the vulnerability in Microsoft's operating system, following its 90-day public disclosure deadline policy. Google Project Zero team routinely finds vulnerabilities in different products from different companies. The vulnerabilities then get reported to the affected software vendors and if they do not patch the flaws in 90 days, Google automatically makes the vulnerability along with its details public. DISCLOSURE OF TWO SECURITY HOLES IN LESS THAN A MONTH Two weeks back, Google Project Zero team disclosed details of an elevation of privilege (EoP) vulnerability  affecting Windows 8.1 that may have allowed hackers to modify cont

A Google security researcher, ' James Forshaw ' has discovered a privilege escalation vulnerability in Windows 8.1 that could allow a hacker to modify contents or even to take over victims' computers completely, leaving millions of users vulnerable. The researcher also provided a Proof of Concept (PoC) program for the vulnerability. Forshaw says that he has tested the PoC only on an updated Windows 8.1 and that it is unclear whether earlier versions, specifically Windows 7, are vulnerable. Forshaw unearthed the bug in September 2014 and thereby notified on the Google Security Research mailing list about the bug on 30th September. Now, after 90 days disclosure deadline the vulnerability and Proof of Concept program was made public on Wednesday. The vulnerability resides in the function AhcVerifyAdminContext , an internal function and not a public API which actually checks whether the user is an administrator. "This function has a vulnerability where i

A security weakness in Android mobile operating system versions below 5.0 that puts potentially every Android device at risk for privilege escalation attacks, has been patched in  Android 5.0 Lollipop  – the latest version of the mobile operating system. The security vulnerability ( CVE-2014-7911 ), discovered by a security researcher named Jann Horn , could allow any potential attacker to bypass the Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) defense and execute arbitrary code of their choice on a target device under certain circumstances. ASLR is a technique involved in protection from buffer overflow attacks. The flaw resides in java.io.ObjectInputStream , which fails to check whether an Object that is being deserialized is actually a serializable object. The vulnerability was reported by the researcher to Google security team earlier this year. According to the security researcher, android apps can communicate with system_service, which runs under admin privileges

A Swedish Security researcher has discovered a critical vulnerability in Apple's OS X Yosemite that gives hackers the ability to escalate administrative privileges on a compromised machine, and allows them to gain the highest level of access on a machine, known as root access. The vulnerability, dubbed as " Rootpipe ", was uncovered by Swedish white-hat hacker Emil Kvarnhammar , who is holding on the full details about the privilege escalation bug until January 2015, as Apple needs some time to prepare a security patch. " Details on the #rootpipe exploit will be presented, but not now. Let's just give Apple some time to roll out a patch to affected users, " Emil Kvarnhammar, IT specialist and hacker security company Truesec, tweeted from his twitter account. By exploiting the vulnerability in the Mac OS X Yosemite , an attacker could bypass the usual safeguard mechanisms which are supposed to stop anyone who tries to root the operating system through a tempora

Multiple flaws have been identified in Linux Kernel and related software could allow hackers to hack your Linux machines, shared hosting and websites hosted on them. PRIVILEGE ESCALATION VULNERABILITY IN LINUX KERNEL A privilege escalation vulnerability has been identified in the widely used Linux kernel that could allow an attackers to take the control of users' system. On Thursday, the most popular distributor of open source Linux OS, Debian warned about this vulnerability (CVE-2014-3153) in a security update, along with some other vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel that may lead to a denial of service attack. The most critical one is the flaw (CVE-2014-3153) discovered by Pinkie Pie which resides in the futex subsystem call of Linux Kernel 2.6.32.62/3.2.59/3.4.91/3.10.41/3.12.21/3.14.5 versions , leaving a queued kernel waiter on the stack, which can be exploited to potentially execute arbitrary code with kernel mode privileges. " Pinkie Pie discovered an

Multiple Serious vulnerabilities have been discovered in the most famous ' All In One SEO Pack ' plugin for WordPress, that put millions of Wordpress websites at risk. WordPress is easy to setup and use, that's why large number of people like it. But if you or your company is using ' All in One SEO Pack ' Wordpress plugin to optimize the website ranking in search engines, then you should update your SEO plugin immediately to the latest version of All in One SEO Pack 2.1.6 . Today, All in One SEO Pack plugin team has released an emergency security update that patches two critical privilege escalation vulnerabilities and one cross site scripting (XSS) flaw, discovered by security researchers at Sucuri, a web monitoring and malware clean up service. More than 73 million websites on the Internet run their websites on the WordPress publishing platform and more than 15 million websites are currently using All in One SEO Pack plugin for search engine optimization. Acco

It seems you cannot go a day without hearing about someone or some group hacking a website or stealing credit card and other sensitive data from e-commerce sites. The Market of E-commerce is at its boom, and that provides even more opportunities to hackers. There are many readymade e-commerce platforms available on the Internet, that are easy to install and easy to manage at no extra cost and 'Magento' is one of the most popular out of them. Recently security researchers at Securatary  have reported a critical cross-store vulnerability in the Magento platform that lets attackers to escalation privilege by creating an administrative user on any ' Gostorego' online store. The authentication bypass vulnerability left 200,000 merchants data vulnerable to hackers before it was patched. To exploit the flaw, an attacker only needed to modify the HOST header to the URI of the target account in the GET request. They dubbed it as " Stealth mode ",

X.Org Foundation develops the X-Window System, the standard window system for open source operating systems and devices. Most of the graphical user interfaces for Unix and Linux systems rely on it. At the 30th Chaos Communication Congress (CCC) in Germany, Ilja van Sprundel , a security researcher gave the presentation titled  " X11 Server security with being 'worse than it looks.'". He found more than 120 bugs in a few months. In the presentation, he has presented a 23 year old Stack overflow vulnerability in X11 System that could lead to privilege escalation to root and affects all versions of the X Server back to X11R5. Later today, X.Org Foundation released a security Advisory , states " A BDF font file containing a longer than expected string could overflow the buffer on the stack. Testing in X servers built with Stack Protector resulted in an immediate crash when reading a user-provided specially crafted font. " The flaw resides in a file at " libXfo

Microsoft has  released  11 Security Patch this Tuesday, including one for CVE-2013-5065  zero-day vulnerability, recently discovered Local privilege escalation vulnerability that could allow a hacker to launch an attack using corrupted TIFF images to take over victims' computers. FireEye researchers said they found the exploit in the wild being used alongside a PDF-based exploit against a patched Adobe Reader vulnerability. December's Patch Tuesday update bundle brings five bulletins ranked critical, including a patch for a vulnerability that could allow remote code execution in Internet Explorer and another remote code execution vulnerability in Office and Microsoft Server is also addressed. Other patches addressing remote code execution vulnerabilities in Lync, all versions of Office and Microsoft Exchange. All supported versions of Windows, from XP to RT and 8.1, are affected by at least one of the critical vulnerabilities. The Six Security bulletins rated important de

Researchers at FireEye have discovered a new privilege escalation vulnerability  in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. CVE-2013-5065, Local privilege escalation vulnerability is used in-the-wild in conjunction with an Adobe Reader exploit ( CVE-2013-3346 ) that appears to target a patched vulnerability. Microsoft has issued an advisory and warned that discovered bug in Windows XP's  NDPROXY.SYS driver could allow hackers to run code in the system's kernel from a standard user account. The exploit could allow a standard user account to execute code in the kernel, which may allow an attacker to gain privileges that would enable him to do various activities, including deleting or viewing data, installing programs, or creating accounts with administrative privileges. "Our investigation of this vulnerability has verified that it does not affect customers who are using operating systems newer than Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 ," Microsoft advised. Last April

Google and Microsoft are at each other's throats again. In a recent statement, Microsoft says hackers have been actively exploiting a vulnerability that was publicly disclosed by a Google researcher,  Tavis Ormandy . Microsoft addressed the vulnerability in its monthly " Patch Tuesday " package of fixes for July. Tavis Ormandy revealed the vulnerability in Windows 7 and 8 allows local users to obtain escalated privileges , making it easier for a hacker to compromise a system. Ormandy has been criticized by Microsoft and some in the security community who subscribe to the practice that a vulnerability shouldn't be made public until a software maker has an opportunity to fix it. Ormandy said that Microsoft " treat vulnerability researchers with great hostility " and are " often very difficult to work with ". He also advised researchers to use pseudonyms when dealing with the software giants. In 2012, Tavis accused Sophos of " poor development practices