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A hacktivist group known as Twelve has been observed using an arsenal of publicly available tools to conduct destructive cyber attacks against Russian targets. "Rather than demand a ransom for decrypting data, Twelve prefers to encrypt victims' data and then destroy their infrastructure with a wiper to prevent recovery," Kaspersky said in a Friday analysis. "The approach is indicative of a desire to cause maximum damage to target organizations without deriving direct financial benefit." The hacking group, believed to have been formed in April 2023 following the onset of the Russo-Ukrainian war, has a track record of mounting cyber attacks that aim to cripple victim networks and disrupt business operations. It has also been observed conducting hack-and-leak operations that exfiltrate sensitive information, which is then shared on its Telegram channel. Kaspersky said Twelve shares infrastructural and tactical overlaps with a ransomware group called DARKSTA...

The U.K. Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has confirmed that professional social networking platform LinkedIn has suspended processing users' data in the country to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models. "We are pleased that LinkedIn has reflected on the concerns we raised about its approach to training generative AI models with information relating to its U.K. users," Stephen Almond, executive director of regulatory risk, said . "We welcome LinkedIn's confirmation that it has suspended such model training pending further engagement with the ICO." Almond also said the ICO intends to closely keep an eye on companies that offer generative AI capabilities, including Microsoft and LinkedIn, to ensure that they have adequate safeguards in place and take steps to protect the information rights of U.K. users. The development comes after the Microsoft-owned company admitted to training its own AI on users' data without seeking their exp...

Ukraine has restricted the use of the Telegram messaging app by government officials, military personnel, and other defense and critical infrastructure workers, citing national security concerns. The ban was announced by the National Coordination Centre for Cybersecurity (NCCC) in a post shared on Facebook. "I have always advocated and advocate for freedom of speech, but the issue of Telegram is not a question of freedom of speech, it is a matter of national security," Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine's GUR military intelligence agency, said . Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) said that Telegram is "actively used by the enemy" to launch cyber attacks, spread phishing messages and malicious software, track users' whereabouts, and gather intelligence to help the Russian military target Ukraine's facilities with drones and missiles. To that end, the use of Telegram has been proscribed on official devices of employees of state ...

Law enforcement authorities have announced the takedown of an international criminal network that leveraged a phishing platform to unlock stolen or lost mobile phones. The phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) platform, called iServer, is estimated to have claimed more than 483,000 victims globally, led by Chile (77,000), Colombia (70,000), Ecuador (42,000), Peru (41,500), Spain (30,000), and Argentina (29,000). "The victims are mainly Spanish-speaking nationals from European, North American and South American countries," Europol said in a press statement. The action, dubbed Operation Kaerb, involved the participation of law enforcement and judicial agencies from Spain, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Pursuant to the joint exercise that took place between September 10 and 17, an Argentinian national responsible for developing and running the PhaaS service since 2018 has been arrested. In total, the operation led to 17 arrests, 28 searches, and the seizure of 92...

In IT environments, some secrets are managed well and some fly under the radar. Here's a quick checklist of what kinds of secrets companies typically manage, including one type they should manage: Passwords [x] TLS certificates [x] Accounts [x] SSH keys ??? The secrets listed above are typically secured with privileged access management (PAM) solutions or similar. Yet, most traditional PAM vendors hardly talk about SSH key management. The reason is simple: they don't have the technology to do it properly.  We can prove it. All our SSH key management customers have had a traditional PAM deployed, but they realized that they couldn't manage SSH keys with it. At best, traditional PAMs can discover, let alone manage, 20% of all keys. So, what's the fuss about SSH keys? SSH keys are access credentials in the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol. In many ways, they're just like passwords but functionally different. On top of that, keys tend to outnumber passwords, especially in long-st...

An Iranian advanced persistent threat (APT) threat actor likely affiliated with the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) is now acting as an initial access facilitator that provides remote access to target networks. Google-owned Mandiant is tracking the activity cluster under the moniker UNC1860 , which it said shares similarities with intrusion sets tracked by Microsoft, Cisco Talos, and Check Point as Storm-0861 (formerly DEV-0861), ShroudedSnooper , and Scarred Manticore , respectively. "A key feature of UNC1860 is its collection of specialized tooling and passive backdoors that [...] supports several objectives, including its role as a probable initial access provider and its ability to gain persistent access to high-priority networks, such as those in the government and telecommunications space throughout the Middle East," the company said . The group first came to light in July 2022 in connection with destructive cyber attacks targeting Albania with a rans...

Google on Thursday unveiled a Password Manager PIN to let Chrome web users sync their passkeys across Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, and Android devices. "This PIN adds an additional layer of security to ensure your passkeys are end-to-end encrypted and can't be accessed by anyone, not even Google," Chrome product manager Chirag Desai said . The PIN is a six-digit code by default, although it's also possible to create a longer alpha-numeric PIN by selecting "PIN options." This marks a change from the previous status quo where users could only save passkeys to save passkeys to Google Password Manager on Android. While the passkeys could be used on other platforms, it was necessary to scan a QR code using the device where they were generated. The latest change removes that step, making it a lot easier for users to sign in to online services using passkeys by simply scanning their biometrics. Google noted that support for iOS is expected to arrive soon...

Ivanti has revealed that a critical security flaw impacting Cloud Service Appliance (CSA) has come under active exploitation in the wild. The new vulnerability, assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2024-8963, carries a CVSS score of 9.4 out of a maximum of 10.0. It was "incidentally addressed" by the company as part of CSA 4.6 Patch 519 and CSA 5.0. "Path Traversal in the Ivanti CSA before 4.6 Patch 519 allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to access restricted functionality," the company said in a Thursday bulletin. It also noted that the flaw could be chained with CVE-2024-8190 (CVSS score: 7.2), permitting an attacker to bypass admin authentication and execute arbitrary commands on the appliance.  Ivanti has further warned that it's "aware of a limited number of customers who have been exploited by this vulnerability," days after it disclosed active exploitation attempts targeting CVE-2024-8190. This indicates that the threat actors behind th...

Until just a couple of years ago, only a handful of IAM pros knew what service accounts are. In the last years, these silent Non-Human-Identities (NHI) accounts have become one of the most targeted and compromised attack surfaces . Assessments report that compromised service accounts play a key role in lateral movement in over 70% of ransomware attacks. However, there's an alarming disproportion between service accounts' compromise exposure and potential impact, and the available security measures to mitigate this risk.  In this article, we explore what makes service accounts such a lucrative target, why they are beyond the scope of most security control, and how the new approach of unified identity security can prevent service accounts from compromise and abuse .  Active Directory Service accounts 101: Non-human identities used for M2M In an Active Directory (AD) environment , service accounts are user accounts that are not associated with human beings but are used for ma...

Threat actors have been observed targeting the construction sector by infiltrating the FOUNDATION Accounting Software , according to new findings from Huntress. "Attackers have been observed brute-forcing the software at scale, and gaining access simply by using the product's default credentials," the cybersecurity company said . Targets of the emerging threat include plumbing, HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning), concrete, and other related sub-industries. The FOUNDATION software comes with a Microsoft SQL (MS SQL) Server to handle database operations, and, in some cases, has the TCP port 4243 open to directly access the database via a mobile app. Huntress said the server includes two high-privileged accounts, including "sa," a default system administrator account, and "dba," an account created by FOUNDATION, that are often left with unchanged default credentials. A consequence of this action is that threat actors could brute-force th...