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A simple yet serious application-level denial of service (DoS) vulnerability has been discovered in WordPress CMS platform that could allow anyone to take down most WordPress websites even with a single machine—without hitting with a massive amount of bandwidth, as required in network-level DDoS attacks to achieve the same. Since the company has denied patching the issue, the vulnerability ( CVE-2018-6389 ) remains unpatched and affects almost all versions of WordPress released in last nine years, including the latest stable release of WordPress (Version 4.9.2). Discovered by Israeli security researcher Barak Tawily , the vulnerability resides in the way " load-scripts.php ," a built-in script in WordPress CMS, processes user-defined requests. For those unaware, load-scripts.php file has only been designed for admin users to help a website improve performance and load page faster by combining (on the server end) multiple JavaScript files into a single request. Howe...

Another reason to uninstall Adobe Flash Player—a new zero-day Flash Player exploit has reportedly been spotted in the wild by North Korean hackers. South Korea's Computer Emergency Response Team (KR-CERT) issued an alert Wednesday for a new Flash Player zero-day vulnerability that's being actively exploited in the wild by North Korean hackers to target Windows users in South Korea. Simon Choi of South Korea-based cybersecurity firm Hauri first reported the campaign on Twitter, saying the North Korean hackers have been using the Flash zero-day against South Koreans since mid-November 2017. Although Choi did not share any malware sample or details about the vulnerability, the researcher said the attacks using the new Flash zero-day is aimed at South Korean individuals who focus on researching North Korea. Adobe also released an advisory on Wednesday, which said the zero-day is exploiting a critical 'use-after-free' vulnerability (CVE-2018-4878) in its Flash ...

It has been few weeks since the details of the Spectre, and Meltdown processor vulnerabilities came out in public and researchers have discovered more than 130 malware samples trying to exploit these chip flaws. Spectre and Meltdown are security vulnerabilities disclosed by security researchers earlier this month in many processors from Intel, ARM and AMD used in modern PCs, servers and smartphones, among other devices. These CPU vulnerabilities could enable attackers to bypass memory isolation mechanisms and access everything, including memory allocated for the kernel containing sensitive data like passwords, encryption keys and other private information. Researchers from independent antivirus testing firm AV-TEST detected at least 139 malware samples, as of today, which are related to these CPU vulnerabilities, as shown in the growth graph. You can find SHA256 hashes for all malware samples here. Meanwhile, cybersecurity firm Fortinet also tracked and analyzed many m...

2017 was the year of high profile data breaches and ransomware attacks, but from the beginning of this year, we are noticing a faster-paced shift in the cyber threat landscape, as cryptocurrency-related malware is becoming a popular and profitable choice of cyber criminals. Several cybersecurity firms are reporting of new cryptocurrency mining viruses that are being spread using EternalBlue —the same NSA exploit that was leaked by the hacking group Shadow Brokers and responsible for the devastating widespread ransomware threat WannaCry . Researchers from Proofpoint discovered a massive global botnet dubbed "Smominru," a.k.a Ismo, that is using EternalBlue SMB exploit (CVE-2017-0144) to infect Windows computers to secretly mine Monero cryptocurrency, worth millions of dollars, for its master. Active since at least May 2017, Smominru botnet has already infected more than 526,000 Windows computers, most of which are believed to be servers running unpatched versions of Wi...

Oracle has released a security patch update to address a critical remotely exploitable vulnerability that affects its MICROS point-of-sale (POS) business solutions for the hospitality industry. The fix has been released as part of Oracle's January 2018 update that patches a total of 238 security vulnerabilities in its various products. According to public disclosure by ERPScan, the security firm which discovered and reported this issue to the company, Oracle's MICROS EGateway Application Service, deployed by over 300,000 small retailers and business worldwide, is vulnerable to directory traversal attack. If exploited, the vulnerability ( CVE-2018-2636 ) could allow attackers to read sensitive data and receive information about various services from vulnerable MICROS workstations without any authentication. Using directory traversal flaw, an unauthorized insider with access to the vulnerable application could read sensitive files from the MICROS workstation, includi...

Mozilla has released an important update for its Firefox web browser to patch a critical vulnerability that could allow remote attackers to execute malicious code on computers running an affected version of the browser. The update comes just a week after the company rolled out its new Firefox Quantum browser, a.k.a Firefox 58, with some new features like improved graphics engine and performance optimizations and patches for more than 30 vulnerabilities. According to a security advisory published by Cisco, Firefox 58.0.1 addresses an 'arbitrary code execution' flaw that originates due to 'insufficient sanitization' of HTML fragments in chrome-privileged documents (browser UI). Hackers could exploit this vulnerability (CVE-2018-5124) to run arbitrary code on the victim's computer just by tricking them into accessing a link or ' opening a file that submits malicious input to the affected software .' "A successful exploit could allow the attacker t...

Every one of us now has at least one internet-connected smart device, which makes this question even more prominent —how much does your smart device know about you? Over the weekend, the popular fitness tracking app Strava proudly published a " 2017 heat map " showing activities from its users around the world, but unfortunately, the map revealed what it shouldn't—locations of the United States military bases worldwide. Strava which markets itself as a "social-networking app for athletes" publicly made available the global heat map, showing the location of all the rides, runs, swims, and downhills taken by its users, as collected by their smartphones and wearable devices like Fitbit. Since Strava has been designed to track users' routes and locations, IUCA analyst Nathan Ruser revealed that the app might have unintentionally mapped out the location of some of the military forces around the world, especially some secret ones from the United States. Wi...

Lenovo has recently rolled out security patches for a severe vulnerability in its Fingerprint Manager Pro software that could allow leak sensitive data stored by the users. Fingerprint Manager Pro is a utility for Microsoft Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 operating systems that allows users to log into their fingerprint-enabled Lenovo PCs using their fingers. The software could also be configured to store website credentials and authenticate site via fingerprint. In addition to fingerprint data, the software also stores users sensitive information like their Windows login credentials—all of which are encrypted using a weak cryptography algorithm. According to the company, Fingerprint Manager Pro version 8.01.86 and earlier contains a hard-coded password vulnerability, identified as CVE-2017-3762 , that made the software accessible to all users with local non-administrative access. "Sensitive data stored by Lenovo Fingerprint Manager Pro, including users' Windows logon credentials...

More than 2,000 WordPress websites have once again been found infected with a piece of crypto-mining malware that not only steals the resources of visitors' computers to mine digital currencies but also logs visitors' every keystroke. Security researchers at Sucuri discovered a malicious campaign that infects WordPress websites with a malicious script that delivers an in-browser cryptocurrency miner from CoinHive and a keylogger. Coinhive is a popular browser-based service that offers website owners to embed a JavaScript to utilise CPUs power of their website visitors in an effort to mine the Monero cryptocurrency. Sucuri researchers said the threat actors behind this new campaign is the same one who infected more than 5,400 Wordpress websites last month since both campaigns used keylogger/cryptocurrency malware called cloudflare[.]solutions. Spotted in April last year, Cloudflare[.]solutions is cryptocurrency mining malware and is not at all related to network ...

Coincheck, a Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange, has suffered what appears to be the biggest hack in the history of cryptocurrencies, losing $532 million in digital assets (nearly $420 million in NEM tokens and $112 in Ripples ). In 2014, Mt Gox , one of the largest bitcoin exchange at that time, filed for bankruptcy after admitting it had lost $450 million worth of Bitcoins. Apparently, the cryptocurrency markets reacted negatively to the news, which resulted in 5% drop in Bitcoin price early this morning. In a blog post published today, the Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange confirmed the cyber heist without explaining how the tokens were stolen, and abruptly froze most of its services, including deposits, withdrawals and trade of almost all cryptocurrencies, except Bitcoin. Coincheck also said the exchange had even stopped deposits into NEM cryptocurrencies, which resulted in 16.5% drop in NEM coin value, as well as other deposit methods including credit cards. Durin...

Are you using Linux or Mac OS? If you think your system is not prone to viruses, then you should read this. Wide-range of cybercriminals are now using a new piece of 'undetectable' spying malware that targets Windows, macOS, Solaris and Linux systems. Just last week we published a detailed article on the report from EFF/Lookout that revealed a new advanced persistent threat (APT) group, called Dark Caracal , engaged in global mobile espionage campaigns. Although the report revealed about the group's successful large-scale hacking operations against mobile phones rather than computers, it also shed light on a new piece of cross-platform malware called CrossRAT (version 0.1), which is believed to be developed by, or for, the Dark Caracal group. CrossRAT is a cross-platform remote access Trojan that can target all four popular desktop operating systems, Windows, Solaris, Linux, and macOS, enabling remote attackers to manipulate the file system, take screenshots, ru...

As many non-tech savvy people think that Bitcoin looks like a Gold coin as illustrated in many stock images, perhaps these robbers also planned to rob a cryptocurrency exchange thinking that way. All jokes apart, we saw one such attempt on Tuesday morning, when three men armed with handguns entered the offices of a Canadian Bitcoin exchange in Ottawa, and restrained four of its employees. The intruders then struck one of the employees in the head with a handgun, asking them to make an outbound transaction from the cryptocurrency exchange. A fifth employee in another cabin, who remained unseen in an office, called the police before any assets could be taken, and the robbers left empty-handed. One of the suspects arrested later Wednesday after arriving police officers saw him run into a ravine north of Colonnade Road and deployed "extensive resources," including K-9 unit officers, to find him, CBC News reports . "Police are looking for two additional suspects,...